Best mugshot ever
The state’s highest criminal court will get a chance to decide whether the special prosecutors appointed in the criminal cases against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton can be paid the $300-an-hour rate they were promised.
Kent A. Schaffer, one of the three special prosecutors in Texas v. Paxton, said the trio will file for a writ of mandamus with the Court of Criminal Appeals to vacate the Fifth Court of Appeals decision Monday to void the judge’s order authorizing an approximately $205,000 payment.
“It’s not over yet,” said Schaffer, a partner in Bires Schaffer & DeBorde in Houston.
[…]
Collin County paid the first order issued by Judge George Gallagher of Tarrant County to pay the special prosecutors $254,908 for pretrial work, but county commissioners balked at making the second payment ordered by Gallagher in January. Instead, the commissioners filed for a writ of mandamus to compel the trial court to vacate its order requiring payment.
According to the Fifth Court’s opinion in In Re Collin County, Texas, Commissioners, Rule 4.01B adopted by Collin County’s judges authorizes payments of pro tem attorneys to deviate from the schedule adopted by the judges. The three-judge panel of the Fifth Court, which heard the commissioners’ petition for a writ, noted in its opinion that Rule 4.01B appears to thwart the objective of Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 26.05, which requires district judges to adopt a schedule of reasonable fees for appointed attorneys.
See here for the background. After all this time, I confess I’m a little unclear on what happens if the special prosecutors lose. Does this mean they will then have been paid all they’re ever going to be paid, or does it mean their pay will be recalculated and readministered based on a much lower hourly rate? In either case, this is ridiculous and will indeed make it impossible to find qualified special prosecutors in future situations. You know my answer to this – the state should pick up the tab when a state official is involved. That ain’t happening any time soon, so let’s hope the CCA makes it all go away, at least for now.