Paxton Prosecutors' SHAKEDOWN DENIED (All Over Again)

"And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart."
Galatians 6:9

Some good news:

After mulling the question for nearly six months, the nine Republican judges on Texas’ highest criminal court will not reconsider their 2018 ruling that threatens to imperil the criminal case against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

In November, a fractured Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that a six-figure payment to the special prosecutors appointed to take Paxton to trial for felony securities fraud fell outside legal limits for what such attorneys may be paid. A month later, the attorneys asked the high court to reconsider that decision in a spirited legal filing that went unanswered until this week.

....

Payments for special prosecutors are based on strict fee schedules, but judges are permitted to approve payments outside those strictures in unusual circumstances, as a North Texas GOP judge did for the prosecutors in the Paxton case. But after Jeff Blackard, a Paxton donor, sued in December 2015, claiming that the fees were exorbitant, the Dallas Court of Appeals voided the prosecutors’ invoice and the payment has been in question. Meanwhile, the trial has been derailed again and again.

Wednesday’s ruling threatens the long-delayed prosecution of Texas’ top lawyer as the prosecutors — unpaid for years — have signaled they may withdraw from the case if they cannot be paid.

As we explained last fall, the prosecutors' intransigence on this payment issue was a tell for the weakness of their case.  Had they brought Paxton to trial, and obtained a conviction, nobody would object to their invoice.  Lawyers who are confident in their case are ALWAYS willing to work on a contingency basis.

Bottom Line: This travesty should have been shut down years ago.