Texas Appeals Court Overturns Tom Delay Conviction

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/09/19/tom-delay-conviction-overturned-money-laundering/2837053/


"The evidence was legally insufficient to sustain DeLay's convictions," the documents said. The judges said they "reverse the judgments of the trial court" and acquit DeLay, once one of the most powerful Republicans in Congress, of all charges.

Delay paid off the appeals judges?

Nekochan wrote:Delay paid off the appeals judges?

Knowing what I know about Texas politics, the appeals court consists of Republican appointees...plus I think the Texas GOP knows at this point that it's going down like a helicopter with a broken blade.

I think judges in Texas are elected.

Nekochan wrote:I think judges in Texas are elected.

Yes, they are. No problem. This is one place where it sometimes works just to throw money at it.

Networks That Touted Tom DeLay’s 2010 Conviction Now Silent About His Acquittal


Back in 2010, when ex-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was convicted on money laundering charges related to campaign fundraising, all three network morning and evening news shows made sure to tell their viewers. But last night and this morning, after an appeals court overturned that verdict and completely acquitted DeLay of those charges, none of the broadcast networks bothered to even mentioned the former Republican leader’s exoneration.

On their November 24, 2010 evening newscasts, all three networks made gave time to the late-breaking news, accompanied by photos of DeLay with various captions: “Guilty Verdict” on ABC; “Convicted” on CBS; “Guilty” on NBC. The next morning (Thanksgiving Day), all three networks revisited the story again, and ABC carved out even more time for a full report on World News that night.

Correspondent Jon Karl that night described the “feared” DeLay as “defiant” for refusing to acquiesce in a conviction that an appeals court has certified as incorrect: “Tom DeLay was once one of the most powerful and feared political figures in America. Now, he stands convicted of money laundering, a crime that could mean real prison time. Defiant as ever, DeLay says it was the prosecutors, and not he, who abused power.”

Friday morning, the editors at National Review branded the prosecution of DeLay as the work of a “hyperpartisan Democratic prosecutor,” Ronnie Earle, who shopped his case against DeLay to multiple grand juries until he could finally secure an indictment. As National Review explained:

To charge Mr. DeLay with money laundering and conspiracy to commit same was a desperate maneuver never destined to stand up to final judgment. That is because to be guilty of money laundering, one must be guilty of producing the money in question through some prior felony offense. There was never any serious evidence that Mr. DeLay had done so. His alleged wrongdoing under campaign-finance laws consisted of using corporate “soft money” donations to offset “hard money” campaign donations in order to circumvent the Texas law prohibiting direct corporate contributions to political candidates....

The attempt of Texas Democrats to criminalize politics, and the decade-plus persecution of Mr. DeLay that resulted from it, is an act of corruption in the most literal sense of that word, eroding the legal and political institutions that enable democratic self-rule in a constitutional republic. Mr. DeLay has cause to celebrate today, but for the rest of us this matter, even though properly resolved at last, is a cause for nothing but shame.
But Thursday night, none of the three networks had a moment to notify audience of DeLay’s acquittal, let alone explore the motivation and ethics of the prosecutor who pushed the case. (Showing off her priorities, however, Diane Sawyer’s World News did have time for a feature story on “the secret lives of dolphins.”)

And Friday morning, none of the three had a second for DeLay’s acquittal, either.


That compares to how they scrambled to get the news into their November 24, 2010 evening broadcasts, on the eve of a major holiday and with NBC fill-in anchor Lester Holt broadcasting from Afghanistan. But despite the obstacles, they all managed to trumpet DeLay’s conviction:


# ABC’s World News, November 24, 2010:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: There is a verdict tonight in an infamous political trial. A jury in Texas found former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay guilty of money laundering and conspiracy. He was once one of the most powerful Republicans in Congress. They called him "The Hammer." Now he could face years in prison.


# CBS Evening News, November 24, 2010:

HARRY SMITH: He was once the most powerful Republican in Washington. Tonight, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is a convicted felon. A jury in Austin convicted him today of money laundering charges. Prosecutors said he illegally funneled corporate donations to legislative campaigns in Texas. DeLay, who is 63, could get anywhere from five to 99 years in prison. His lawyer called the verdict a miscarriage of justice and vowed to appeal.


# NBC Nightly News, November 24, 2010:

LESTER HOLT: Breaking news tonight. Tom DeLay was once one of the most powerful people in Congress. Tonight, he faces the possibility of life in prison after a jury verdict this evening. Our justice correspondent Pete Williams is in our Washington bureau now. Pete:

PETE WILLIAMS: Lester, these are the charges that brought Tom DeLay's political career to an end, forcing him to resign five years after he was indicted. He stepped down from his powerful position as the House majority leader. But tonight a jury in a Texas state court convicted him of illegally channeling nearly $200,000 in corporate donations to candidates who were running for the state legislature. Prosecutors accused him of doing it to get more Republicans in the legislature, who would then help draw more congressional districts with Republican majorities.

Now, he did appear on the TV program "Dancing with the Stars" in 2009, but he has stayed mostly out of the public eye since losing his Washington responsibilities, except to attend to his trial. He'll be sentenced later and he could face some prison time, Lester.

HOLT: Pete Williams tonight. Pete, thanks.


In addition, when DeLay was formally sentenced to three years in prison (he’s been out on bond during his successful appeal), CBS and NBC put that news on their January 10, 2011 evening broadcasts, while all three morning shows picked it up on January 11, 2011.

There’s no doubt that a jury conviction of a former congressional leader is news. But fairness would suggest that an exoneration of the same leader is equally important news.

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/rich-noyes/2013/09/20/networks-touted-tom-delay-s-2010-conviction-now-silent-about-his-acquitt#ixzz2fSP4Wzpj

Delay was a skilled politician and operated with a similar mindset as LBJ, Texas style, with control over his subordinates. How this was overturned we will never know the facts but, living here in NW Florida where the GOB system is alive and prospering, this smells fishy. Personally, I am glad he is history but others are carrying the banner in his place so the beat goes on . ., . .

DeLay was knee-deep in the Enron scandal...the water boy for the energy deregulation that allowed the mass fraud...as was George W. Bush. The judge in this case was only reprimanded and fined on one occasion...taking a $25,000 campaign contribution from her in-laws, in violation of state law. She said she misread the law on the contribution. Yep...something sure is fishy here...and it's not anchovies.

Floridatexan wrote:

Nekochan wrote:Delay paid off the appeals judges?

Knowing what I know about Texas politics, the appeals court consists of Republican appointees...plus I think the Texas GOP knows at this point that it's going down like a helicopter with a broken blade.

Thank you, Texas politics at its best.

Markle wrote:

From THE TAKING OF AMERICA 1, 2, 3 - Richard E. Sprague (3rd Ed.,1985)

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/ToA/ToAchp7.html#fn5

(Complete book at link)



Chapter 7
Threats & Chappaquiddick

The Control of the Kennedys Through the years the most common question of all has been: "If there was a conspiracy in the JFK assassination, why didn't Robert Kennedy find out about it and take some action? And if there was a conspiracy in the RFK assassination why haven't Ted Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy done something about it?" No one except the Kennedys know the answers to these questions for sure. However, there are plenty of clues and some other Power Control Group actions to provide the answers to us.
First of all, thanks to Jackie Kennedy Onassis' butler in Athens, Greece, Christain Cafarakis, we know why Jackie did nothing after her husband's death. In a book published in 1972, Cafarakis tells about an investigation Jackie had conducted by a famous New York City detective agency into the assassination of JFK in 1964 and 1965.[1] It was financed by Aristotle Onassis and resulted in a report in the spring of 1965 telling who the four gunmen were and who was behind them. Jackie planned to give the report to LBJ but was stopped by a threat from the Power Control Group to kill her and her children. Ted, Bobby and other family members knew about the report and the threat.
The second clue is Chappaquiddick. A careful examination of the real evidence in this event shows that Ted Kennedy was framed in the killing of Mary Joe Kopechne and then his life and his children's lives threatened if he ever told the truth about what happened. The facts in the case and the conclusions that can be drawn from them are contained in a book by Boston researcher Robert Cutler.[2]
The third clue is Ted's withdrawal from the presidential race in November 1975. It is a fact that all of his and Robert's children were being protected by the Secret Service for five days in November 1975. A threat had been made against the children's lives unless he officially announced his withdrawal. He made the announcement and has stuck to it ever since. The Secret Service protection ended the day after he made the announcement.
It does not seem likely that Senator Kennedy would withdraw from the race because of a threat from a lone nut or from some obscure group. He remembers the 1965 threat and Chappaquiddick very well. He knows about the Power Control Group and he knows their enormous capability. He knows what they did to his brothers. He has no choice but to hope that somehow, sometime, the Group will be exposed. But he dares not let them believe he would ever have anything to do with it. Publicly he will always have to support the Warren Commission and continue to state that he will not run for president. Privately he is forced to ask his closest friends and his relatives not to get involved with new investigations, and to help protect his children. Some of them know the truth. Others do not, and are puzzled by his behavior. They go along with it under the assumption that he has good and sufficient reasons not to open the can of worms represented by the conspiracies in his brother's deaths.
The Power Control Group faced up to the Ted Kennedy and Kennedy family problem very early. They used the threat against the Kennedy children's lives very effectively between 1963 and 1968 to silence Bobby and the rest of the family and friends who knew the truth. It was necessary to assassinate Bobby in 1968 because with the power of the presidency he could have prevented the Group from harming the children. When Teddy began making moves to run for president in 1969 for the 1972 election, the Group decided to put some real action behind their threats. Killing Teddy in 1969 would have been too much. They selected a new way of eliminating him as a candidate. They framed him with the death of a young girl, and threw sexual overtones in for good measure.
Here is what happened according to Cutler's analysis of the evidence. The Group hired several men and at least one woman to be at Chappaquiddick during the weekend of the yacht race and the planned party on the island. They ambushed Ted and Mary Jo after they left the cottage and knocked Ted out with blows to his head and body. They took the unconscious or semi-conscious Kennedy to Martha's Vineyard and deposited him in his hotel room. Another group took Mary Jo to the bridge in Ted's car, force fed her with a knock out potion of alcoholic beverage, placed her in the back seat, and caused the car to accelerate off the side of the bridge into the water. They broke the windows on one side of the car to insure the entry of water; then they watched the car until they were sure Mary Jo would not escape.
Mary Jo actually regained consciousness and pushed her way to the top of the car (which was actually the bottom of the car -- it had landed on its roof) and died from asphyxiation. The group with Teddy revived him early in the morning and let him know he had a problem. Possibly they told him that Mary Jo had been kidnapped. They told him his children would be killed if he told anyone what had happened and that he would hear from them. On Chappaquiddick, the other group made contact with Markham and Gargan, Ted's cousin and lawyer. They told both men that Mary Jo was at the bottom of the river and that Ted would have to make up a story about it, not revealing the existence of the group. One of the men resembled Ted and his voice sounded something like Ted's. Markham and Gargan were instructed to go the the Vineyard on the morning ferry, tell Ted where Mary Jo was, and come back to the island to wait for a phone call at a pay station near the ferry on the Chappaquiddick side.
The two men did as they were told and Ted found out what had happened to Mary Jo that morning. The three men returned to the pay phone and received their instructions to concoct a story about the "accident" and to report it to the police. The threat against Ted's children was repeated at that time.
Ted, Markham and Gargan went right away to police chief Arena's office on the Vineyard where Ted reported the so-called "accident." Almost at the same time scuba diver John Farror was pulling Mary Jo out of the water, since two boys who had gone fishing earlier that morning had spotted the car and reported it.
Ted called together a small coterie of friends and advisors including family lawyer Burke Marshall, Robert MacNamara, Ted Sorenson, and others. They met on Squaw Island near the Kennedy compound at Hyannisport for three days. At the end of that time they had manufactured the story which Ted told on TV, and later at the inquest. Bob Cutler calls the story, "the shroud." Even the most cursory examination of the story shows it was full of holes and an impossible explanation of what happened. Ted's claim that he made the wrong turn down the dirt road toward the bridge by mistake is an obvious lie. His claim that he swam the channel back to Martha's Vineyard is not believable. His description of how he got out of the car under water and then dove down to try to rescue Mary Jo is impossible. Markham and Gargan's claims that they kept diving after Mary Jo are also unbelievable.
The evidence for the Cutler scenario is substantial. It begins with the marks on the bridge and the position of the car in the water. The marks show that the car was standing still on the bridge and then accelerated off the edge, moving at a much higher speed than Kennedy claimed. The distance the car travelled in the air also confirms this. The damage to the car on two sides and on top plus the damage to the windshield and the rear view mirror stanchion [3] prove that some of the damage had to have been inflicted before the car left the bridge.
The blood on the back and on the sleeves of Mary Jo's blouse proves that a wound was inflicted before she left the bridge.[4] The alcohol in her bloodstream proves she was drugged, since all witnesses testified she never drank and did not drink that night. The fact that she was in the back seat when her body was recovered indicates that is where she was when the car hit the water. There was no way she could have dived downward against the inrushing water and moved from the front to the back seat underneath the upside-down seat back.
The wounds on the back of Ted Kennedy's skull, those just above his ear and the large bump on the top indicate he was knocked out. His actions at the hotel the next morning show he was not aware of Mary Jo's death until Markham and Gargan arrived. The trip to the pay phone on Chappaquiddick can only be explained by his receiving a call there, not making one. There were plenty of pay phones in or near Ted's hotel if he needed to make a private call. The tides in the channel and the direction in which Ted claimed he swam do not match. In addition it would have been a superhuman feat to have made it across the channel (as proven by several professionals who subsequently tried it).
Deputy Sheriff Christopher Look's testimony, coupled with the testimony of Ray LaRosa and two Lyons girls, proves that there were two people in Ted's car with Mary Jo at 12:45 PM. The three party members walking along the road south toward the cottage confirmed the time that Mr. Look drove by. He stopped to ask if they needed a ride. Look says that just prior to that he encountered Ted's car parked facing north at the juncture of the main road and the dirt road. It was on a short extension of the north-south section of the road junction to the north of the "T". He says he saw a man driving, a woman in the seat beside him, and what he thought was another woman lying on the back seat. He remembered a portion of the license plate which matched Ted's car, as did the description of the car. Markham, Gargan and Ted's driver's testimony show that someone they talked to in the pitch black night sounded like Ted and was about his height and build.
None of the above evidence was ever explained by Ted or by anyone else at the inquest or at the hearing on the case demanded by district attorney Edward Dinis. No autopsy was ever allowed on Mary Jo's body (her family objected), and Ted made it possible to fly her body home for burial rather quickly. Kennedy haters have seized upon Chappaquiddick to enlarge the sexual image now being promoted of both Ted and Jack Kennedy. Books like "Teddy Bare" take full advantage of the situation.
Just which operatives in the Power Control Group at the high levels or the lower levels were on Chappaquiddick Island? No definite evidence has surfaced as yet, except for an indication that there was at least one woman and at least three men, one of whom resembled Ted Kennedy and who sounded like him in the darkness. However, two pieces of testimony in the Watergate hearings provide significant clues as to which of the known JFK case conspirators may have been there.
E. Howard Hunt told of a strange trip to Hyannisport to see a local citizen there about the Chappaquiddick incident. Hunt's cover story on this trip was that he was digging up dirt on Ted Kennedy for use in the 1972 campaign. The story does not make much sense if one questions why Hunt would have to wear a disguise, including his famous red wig, and to use a voice-alteration device to make himself sound like someone else. If, on the other hand, Hunt's purpose was to return to the scene of his crime just to make sure that no one who might have seen his group at the bridge or elsewhere would talk, then the disguise and the voice box make sense.
The other important testimony came from Tony Ulasewicz who said he was ordered by the Plumbers to fly immediately to Chappaquiddick and dig up dirt on Ted. The only problem Tony has is that, according to his testimony, he arrived early on the morning of the "accident", before the whole incident had been made public. Ulasewicz is the right height and weight to resemble Kennedy and with a CIA voice-alteration device he presumably could be made to sound like him. There is a distinct possibility that Hunt and Tony were there when it happened.
The threats by the Power Control Group, the frame-up at Chappaquiddick, and the murders of Jack and Bobby Kennedy cannot have failed to take their toll on all of the Kennedys. Rose, Ted, Jackie, Ethel and the other close family members must be very tired of it all by now. They can certainly not be blamed for hoping it will all go away. Investigations like those proposed by Henry Gonzalez and Thomas Downing only raised the spectre of the powerful Control Group taking revenge by kidnapping some of the seventeen children.
It was no wonder that a close Kennedy friend and ally in California, Representative Burton, said that he would oppose the Downing and Gonzalez resolutions unless Ted Kennedy put his stamp of approval on them. While the sympathies of every decent American go out to them, the future of our country and the freedom of the people to control their own destiny through the election process mean more than the lives of all the Kennedys put together. If John Kennedy were alive today he would probably make the same statement.
John Dean summed it up when he said to Richard Nixon as recorded on the White House tapes in 1973: "If Teddy knew the bear trap he was walking into at Chappaquiddick. . . ."[5]

Is it so hard to imagine that the same people who killed JFK in 1963 and RFK in 1968 framed Ted Kennedy in 1969 after he announced his candidacy for president?

lol

http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2013/09/tom-delay-exonerated-and-ecstatic.html/

A History Lesson from 2009:

So That's Why Tom DeLay Isn't in Prison Yet
January, 2009

Scott Horton at Harper's:

In theory, our legal system affords equal access to justice. But, as George Orwell offers in Animal Farm, some of us are more equal than others, and Tom DeLay is, in Texas politics, the most equal of all. Texas courts, which are notoriously political, are packed with Republicans who owe their careers to Tom DeLay, directly or indirectly. That makes the justice dealt out in the DeLay case justice without equal.

DeLay is now facing trial in Austin on charges of money-laundering. But his case has been bottled up by an appeals court dominated by Republicans. Ronnie Earle, a legendary prosecutor who has taken down far more Democrats than Republicans in his day, had hoped to end his career with this trial–but DeLay’s fellow Republicans insured that this would not happen. They waited patiently for Earle to retire and then handed down a preliminary ruling. The Republican judges find no reason why one of their colleagues who, before coming on the bench, said the DeLay prosecution was “politically motivated” could not then rule on the case. That reflects a novel understanding of the canons of judicial ethics, which–at least in places other than Texas–require that a judge handle his matters impartially. When a judge expresses an opinion on the merits of a case before it comes to him, that is prejudgment. It disqualifies him from participating in the case. Why this extraordinary departure from settled rules of judicial ethics? It appears that with one Republican recused, the court would have a tie vote, and DeLay would be denied the deus ex machina he is waiting for: a court ruling that the prosecution’s case is fatally defective.

As the Houston Chronicle reports today, the Republican majority on the court even blocked the two Democratic justices from filing dissenting opinions...

http://brainsandeggs.blogspot.com/2009/01/so-thats-why-tom-delay-isnt-in-prison.html

Between Zimmerman and this, the libs are losing it

You could compare MSMs silence to the PNJ when it makes wrong accusations on people court and then silence when they are exonerated

Why do you, Markle, keep bringing up the subject...after all, it happened in 1969...not exactly current events, unless you purpose is to try and destroy the credibility of all Democrats...which, of course, it is. I've seen this particular post from you about 30 times. Face it, no one would buy the third Kennedy with presidential aspirations killed by another crazed "lone gunman". He had to be discredited. I suppose you think that John, Jr. was killed in a freak plane crash.

Floridatexan wrote:
Why do you, Markle, keep bringing up the subject...after all, it happened in 1969...not exactly current events, unless you purpose is to try and destroy the credibility of all Democrats...which, of course, it is.  I've seen this particular post from you about 30 times.  Face it, no one would buy the third Kennedy with presidential aspirations killed by another crazed "lone gunman".  He had to be discredited.  I suppose you think that John, Jr. was killed in a freak plane crash.  

Yeah, actually it is current events because when was it that Ted "Hic" Kennedy left office? Typical of Democrats, things like manslaughter are enhancements to their resume.

I guess you're saying that Mary Jo Kopechne was working under cover for the Republicans?

Markle wrote:

Floridatexan wrote:
Why do you, Markle, keep bringing up the subject...after all, it happened in 1969...not exactly current events, unless you purpose is to try and destroy the credibility of all Democrats...which, of course, it is.  I've seen this particular post from you about 30 times.  Face it, no one would buy the third Kennedy with presidential aspirations killed by another crazed "lone gunman".  He had to be discredited.  I suppose you think that John, Jr. was killed in a freak plane crash.  

Yeah, actually it is current events because when was it that Ted "Hic" Kennedy left office?  Typical of Democrats, things like manslaughter are enhancements to their resume.

I guess you're saying that Mary Jo Kopechne was working under cover for the Republicans?

No, she worked on Bobby Kennedy's campaign. I'm not saying that at all. You're trying...desperately, to spin my words.

Floridatexan wrote:

Markle wrote:

Floridatexan wrote:
Why do you, Markle, keep bringing up the subject...after all, it happened in 1969...not exactly current events, unless you purpose is to try and destroy the credibility of all Democrats...which, of course, it is.  I've seen this particular post from you about 30 times.  Face it, no one would buy the third Kennedy with presidential aspirations killed by another crazed "lone gunman".  He had to be discredited.  I suppose you think that John, Jr. was killed in a freak plane crash.  

Yeah, actually it is current events because when was it that Ted "Hic" Kennedy left office?  Typical of Democrats, things like manslaughter are enhancements to their resume.

I guess you're saying that Mary Jo Kopechne was working under cover for the Republicans?

No, she worked on Bobby Kennedy's campaign.  I'm not saying that at all.  You're trying...desperately, to spin my words.

Was this not your post? "Face it, no one would buy the third Kennedy with presidential aspirations killed by another crazed 'lone gunman'."

So how is this a conspiracy?