Burnt Orange Report

I was in the Tarrant County courthouse that day as the trial was literally minutes from starting. The Travis County prosecution team asked the judge for a highly unusual pretrial ruling, and the judge said he would rule on each piece of evidence as it was presented. Mr. Earle, who was in the room, said he would just drop the case. The highly irritated judge (who, if I remember, was a visiting jurist) told Earle to proceed with his case. Earle refused, making the judge so mad he impaneled a jury and directed an aquital. Then Earle laid out his evidence to the press, presumably to show that he was somehow treated unfairly by the court. The judge later said that the evidence in question would probably have been admitted -- if only Earle had proceeded that morning as scheduled.

No fair person can say that KBH was "guilty" just because Earle refused to obey the court's guidelines on evidentiary rulings. Andrew should know this. That was a clear case of Earle putting politics above the law. (The Harding, Lewis, and Bullock cases were even more political, but that's another story).

I like Ronnie Earle, but even his staff acknowledges that he can act sort of odd, particularly in cases involving politics.

I'm a tad shocked that an alleged "progressive" site like BOR would claim that KBH is GUILTY when she was aquitted in a case that Ronnie Earle refused to prosecute. You may want to rethink this particular post.

Dude, what's the is difference between "through" and "threw"? My english isn't so good, but DAMN, even I caught that mistake. Please fix.

also, Jose Angel Guiterrez was the real winner of the 1993 special election. Not KBH!!! Bob Kreuger and the other white Dems that rule the party secretly rigged the votes against Guiterrez in the valley and such. He didn't get the paltry % they claim. He actually got 30%, good enough for the run-off!!!

Why don't you cover that you white democrat website!!! Viva La Raza Unida mofos!!!!!!

Oh, and vote for Hobie Ramirez Dean for State Rep in Dist 48!!!!!!

KBH was mean to her staff, so therefore their testimony becomes more credible? I know the poster of this thread is smarter than the judge, but don't you think having a case thrown out and classified as an aquittal should be reason enough to label the indicted "innocent?"

I don't know what evidence will be revealed in the DeLay case, but Senator Hutchinson was innocent then, and remains so today...no matter how nasty she was to her staff.

Men are always tough. Women are always mean. Men are good businessmen. Women are bitches. Please. Enough already. Employees of women for some reason always use the words mean and bitches. And usually have a bone to pick. Especially the male employees.

The judge would not have ordered an acquittal if he felt the evidence supported the charge. If it did, someone should have hauled him in front of the judicial review committee. To date, no one has.

I suspect there is more to this story than what has been related here. Particularly with regard to the "exchange" between Ronnie Earle and the judge.

The only indictment that matters is the indictment against Tom De Lay. Doesn't matter if it was Ronnie Earle's first indictment of a public official or his 100th.

KBH...a woman with "no conviction"

She actually has some convictions. She voted against one Bush judicial nominee because of some of his positions. She tempers her votes with regard to women's issues and called Trent Lott on the carpet over some very homophobic comments he made. She is a stalking victim and became an advocate for stalking victims in 1996 when she wrote and sponsored and lobbied for passage of the federal stalking law which was so well received by the Democrats as well as the Republicans that it had to be attached to a transportation act in order to get it passed.

She is considered a moderate Republican. Some Republicans consider her a Democrat because of her convictions and her standing by them. Many of the criticisms leveled at her have also been leveled at Sandra Day O'Connor.

Unfortunately there have been too many times she didn't stand by her convictions and did the "politically correct" thing. I suspect at times she is more a fish out of water and confused as to which pond she belongs in.

I thought that defense attorney Dick DeGuerin found Kay's loophole when he discovered that one of the Grand Jury members that indicted KBH was a felon.

I have to respond to Bob Smith's comment that no fair person can say that KBH was "guilty" just because Earle refused to obey the court's guidelines on evidentiary rulings. And also take exception to his account of the events that lead up to the case being dropped.

I don't get the logic. Guilt in court and guilt outside of court are two separate things when you’re taking about an individuals integrity. Michael Jackson was found not guilty, but does any "fair" person really believe him to be so?

KBH did what she did. Her staff witnessed and documented it.

A courtroom is supposed to be a crucible, where irrelevances are melted away until we are left with the truth. Our courtrooms have become a joke, where the truth has to be maneuvered through a maze of technicalities that threaten to derail the process. It’s like a big legal game of Operation; careful, don’t hit the metal edge or you lose the game.

KBH did what she did. The court may acquit her for some absurd technical reason, but that doesn’t mean she's innocent of the crime, it simply means that under our system of justice, she’s just not prosecutable.

Joe T has it right. Those who regard every guilty finding as establishing a defendant's actual guilt (as opposed to his liability to legal punishment) and every acquittal as establishing a defendant's actual innocence (as opposed to immunity to further legal prosecution) display a remarkable level of naivete. A person who comes out of a courtroom with an acquittal the way Kay Bailey Hutchinson did may nevertheless have committed the very crime of which they were acquitted. Certainly those who saw the evidence against KBH thought it was very, very strong; but the jury never got to see it or rule on it.