Quote:
Originally Posted by Poppinjay
Well, first off, this is the judge, not the D.A.
|
I'm an attorney that has been a DA (well, assistant) and a judge at times. I know the difference, I was just trying to set the mirror image of the Delay case.
Quote:
And we just seated a new Republican chief justice who spent his entire hearing proclaiming his personal views would not interfere with his rulings.
I don't think this argument will go far.
|
I'm not making the legal argument, I'm taking the "let's be consistent" position. To be honest, I've been in front of judges that ran as Democrats and handled cases involving known Republican, and there was never an issue of political bias.
But given the Delay case is based on politics--political contributions, to be exact, then the political leaning of the impartial bench has to be considered. This judge is a bit more active in politics than I'd like to see in a trial judge--the one that rules on admissibility of evidence and on pretrial motions. I prefer the system where judges run as non-partisans, and then there is no questions such as are being raised here.
And I agree with a previous suggestion that handing the case off to an active (in the party) Republican judge will look like the fix is in if Delay wins. The answer is to have someone that isn't politically connected, but I'm not sure that can happen in Texas; I'd defer to someone in that state.