If you have voluntary sex the day before you turn legal age, the prosecutor has no discretion but to ruin your boyfriend's life. We do not compromise. Our hands are tied. If you commit a crime the day you turn adult age, the prosecutor has no discretion but to charge you as an adult. Sorry, the issue is black and white, no shades of gray. But if you commit a crime when you're age 12, the prosecutor suddenly has discretion to charge you as an adult. Hey, we need to compensate for shortcomings in the law. Funny how it always works in their favor.
I really don't see how anyone here can be certain one way or another with regards to perry and what is currently known about this situation. Depending on the facts this could totally be malicious procicution or a very guilty governor. The facts will come out and we shall see.
The indictment is a skimpy 2 pages. You'd think they'd provide some details if there were more to the story?
Grand jury proceedings are generally secret and the documents released are frequently bare-bones material. That is why I brought up the issue of the defense seeking a preliminary hearing. If there is really nothing there, a prelim will expose that in a public forum. (and the judge can void the indictment)
The Tom Delay indictment documents are 4 pages and detailed enough. http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/tom-delay-indicted BTW, his conviction by this same kangaroo court was overturned, you know.
Ok, so 2 pages is not enough detail, 4 pages is enough detail. What if it was three pages? Is that enough, or not enough? DennyLand has a lot of rules for a libertarian place, and I want to make sure I understand them all. barfo
Two pages must not be enough to include the charges people are inventing in this thread. Stuff like threats made in private, and so on. You know, stuff that makes it look like he committed a crime. Stuff that might convince the David Axelrods of the world that there's actually something to this.
In the 2012 presidential primaries, Perry was like Donald Sterling, shooting himself in the foot with verbal gaffes. Like Sterling, after he escapes this gaffe with retirement, he'll still complain and play victim. He won't get any jail time.
Yogi Berra suffered from malapropism, as did Dizzy Dean. Perry's record in Texas speaks for itself. It's a destination for companies and people that are overtaxed elsewhere. http://thetexaseconomy.org/economic-outlook/
As well as being a mecca for sweat shop labor with a very low cost of living, easy access to guns and ammo and liberal open container laws. The downside being they'll electrocute you there if you get out of line.
My older half brother grew up in Houston and practices law there. Played for Texas AM in the 60's ..he loves it and it is a very good place to do business and profit no doubt.
The length of the indictment has nothing to do with the strength of the case. The indictment states what Perry is charged with and what the state will have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Now that he is indicted the defense will be entitled to discovery and that will determine the strength of the case. A murder charge could be on a one page indictment but there will likely be hundreds of pages of discovery. A DUII that takes on several misdemeanors like reckless driving, reckless endangering, driving while suspended and attempt to elude can take three pages or more and discovery will be a 5 page report. The indictment should only list the crimes a person is being charged with. The details and evidence of the case is in the discovery.
The indictment document for Tom Delay contains a lot more detail than you suggest would be in this kind of document. You know, amounts of money, and a fairly complete story of what the prosecution claims went on. Note Delay's conviction was overturned by an appeals court, and it was originally brought and tried in this same district as Perry's indictment. Ham sandwich. http://www.thesmokinggun.com/file/tom-delay-indicted?page=1
The New York Times editorial board weighs in. They're no friend to any republican. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/19/opinion/is-gov-perrys-bad-judgment-really-a-crime.html Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is one of the least thoughtful and most damaging state leaders in America, having done great harm to immigrants, abortion clinics and people without health insurance during his 14 years in office. But bad political judgment is not necessarily a felony, and the indictment handed up against him on Friday — given the facts so far — appears to be the product of an overzealous prosecution. For more than a year, Mr. Perry has been seeking the resignation of the Travis County district attorney, Rosemary Lehmberg. He had good reason to do so: Ms. Lehmberg was arrested in April 2013 for driving with a blood alcohol level of more than three times the legal limit, and she verbally abused the officers who found her with an open bottle of vodka. She ranted and raved at the local jail, threatening sheriff’s deputies, and she had to be restrained in a chair with a hood over her head. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 45 days in jail. In addition to endangering people’s lives, she instantly lost her credibility as a prosecutor of drunken-driving cases. But Ms. Lehmberg is also an elected Democrat, and as the prosecutor in Austin, the state capital, she ran the Public Integrity Unit, which investigates corruption charges against state lawmakers, often including prominent Republicans. The office, in fact, has been investigating whether several medical research grants were improperly given to people with connections to Mr. Perry. Had she stepped down, the governor might have named a Republican to replace her, so she refused. After the arrest, Mr. Perry told Ms. Lehmberg that if she didn’t resign, he would cut the financing for the Public Integrity Unit. In June, he did just that, using his line-item veto to zero out the $7.5 million for the unit. That was a bad idea. Had county officials not stepped in with some money, the veto could have shut down an important investigative body and its cases. Mr. Perry should have left the matter to the courts, where both a criminal and a civil attempt to have her removed failed, or to the voters. But his ill-advised veto still doesn’t seem to rise to the level of a criminal act. After a complaint was filed by a liberal group, a judge appointed a special prosecutor, Michael McCrum, a San Antonio lawyer and former federal prosecutor, to take the case. A Travis County grand jury indicted Mr. Perry on two felony counts: abuse of official capacity and coercion of a public servant. The indictment says he exceeded his veto power by combining it with a threat to Ms. Lehmberg if she didn’t quit. Governors and presidents threaten vetoes and engage in horse-trading all the time to get what they want, but for that kind of political activity to become criminal requires far more evidence than has been revealed in the Perry case so far. Perhaps Mr. McCrum will have some solid proof to show once the case heads to trial. But, for now, Texas voters should be more furious at Mr. Perry for refusing to expand Medicaid, and for all the favors he has done for big donors, than for a budget veto. (BINGO)
