A bit of sanity at last, though we’re not out of the woods yet.
Best mugshot ever
Texas’ highest criminal court has stepped into the long-running dispute over the prosecutors’ pay in the securities fraud case against Attorney General Ken Paxton, putting on hold a lower-court ruling that voided a six-figure invoice.
In a decision Monday, the Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay of an Aug. 21 ruling by the Dallas-based 5th Court of Appeals that had invalidated the $205,000 payment, which covered work going back to January 2016. Last week, the prosecutors asked the Court of Criminal Appeals to reverse that ruling, calling it a “clear abuse of discretion.”
In its order Monday, the Court of Criminal Appeals gave all sides 30 days to respond to the prosecutors’ arguments.
[…]
“We’re extremely gratified that, after a thoughtful and careful review of our writ, at least five judges on the Court of Criminal Appeals recognized that we were entitled to a stay of the Fifth Court of Appeals’ order,” prosecutor Brian Wice said in a statement. “We’re cautiously optimistic that the Court will ultimately conclude that the Fifth Court’s unwarranted decision to scuttle the fee schedules of over two-thirds of all Texas counties was a clear abuse of discretion.”
See here, here, and here for the background. This isn’t a ruling in the case, just basically a stay on the 5th Court order pending oral arguments. The CCA could still uphold the lower court’s ruling, which would be bad. But at least there’s now a chance we could affirm the principle that private citizens should not be able to derail prosecutions. The Chron and the DMN have more.