Three strikes and you're out?

Tom DeLay

Oct 6th 2005 AUSTIN
From The Economist print edition

The charges just got worse, but the prosecution may be rattled

AN EPIC legal battle is shaping up in Texas. Last week, Tom DeLay was forced to resign his post as House majority leader after a Texas grand jury indicted him for conspiring to violate the state's election code. This week, more charges appeared. A different grand jury, on its first day of work, “re-indicted” Mr DeLay and two associates on charges of money-laundering and criminal conspiracy. The maximum penalty for money-laundering, a first-degree felony, is life in prison.

Re-indictments are not uncommon in Texas, where defence lawyers try to dismiss the originals with all kinds of technicalities (for example, if the indictment does not end with the words “against the peace and dignity of the state”, it gets tossed). Indeed, James Ellis and John Colyandro, the two DeLay associates also named in the conspiracy and money-laundering charges, have now been re-indicted more than once.

Still, the new charges, coming so quickly, are a surprise. Like those last week, they stem from the 2002 Texas election, when Mr DeLay masterminded the Republican campaign for the legislature. Ronnie Earle, the Austin-based prosecutor, claims that Mr DeLay's then political action committee, Texans for a Republican Majority (TRMPAC), collected corporate money and sent a cheque for $190,000 to part of the Republican National Committee. The RNC, at the conspirators' suggestion, then sent $190,000 donated from individuals back to seven Republican candidates' campaigns. This got round the Texan election code's ban on companies donating to state campaigns.

Mr DeLay has accused Mr Earle, a Democrat, of “prosecutorial abuse.” His defence lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, filed a motion on Monday to dismiss last week's indictment. Mr DeGuerin argued that the “conspiracy” charge started applying to the election code only in 2003, after a change made by the state legislature. Hours later came the re-indictment, leading Mr DeLay's defence team to boast that Mr Earle had realised that the original indictment was flawed.

Mr Earle claims that “additional information” arose in the days after the first indictment. Rubbish, reply Mr DeLay's lawyers, who also gleefully point to Mr Earle's admission that a third grand jury refused to issue a money-laundering indictment late last week. Meanwhile, the Austin legal world is buzzing with speculation about links between the defence's motion to dismiss the conspiracy charge and Mr Earle's re-indictments.

Mr Earle is probably worried about two things: Mr DeGuerin and timing. Mr DeGuerin, who started working for Mr DeLay only last month, is one of the best defence lawyers in Texas. “If you're a wealthy person in Houston and you're guilty, you always hire Dick DeGuerin,” says one Austin lawyer (a comment that is obviously not applicable to Mr DeLay who has long maintained his innocence).

Mr DeGuerin says he will seek to re-instate the three-year statute of limitations for Mr DeLay, who previously had signed a waiver. That would explain why the prosecution has had to hurry up: the allegedly illegal payments totalling $190,000 by the Republican National Committee took place on October 4th 2002. In any case, the fireworks begin soon: Mr DeLay's first day in court comes on October 21st.

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