{"id":20723,"date":"2017-03-31T03:34:34","date_gmt":"2017-03-31T03:34:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=20723"},"modified":"2017-03-31T03:34:34","modified_gmt":"2017-03-31T03:34:34","slug":"texas-ag-handed-surprising-setback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=20723","title":{"rendered":"Texas AG handed surprising setback"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Paxton_TT_jpg_800x1000_q100.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-20724\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Paxton_TT_jpg_800x1000_q100-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Paxton_TT_jpg_800x1000_q100-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Paxton_TT_jpg_800x1000_q100-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Paxton_TT_jpg_800x1000_q100.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Ken Paxton wanted to be tried by a jury of his peers in his home county in Texas.<\/p>\n<p>State lawyers who are prosecuting him on charges of securities fraud said the Texas attorney general&#8217;s legal team had poisoned the jury pool and asked the judge for a change of venue.<\/p>\n<p>Today, the judge agreed and moved the case out of Collin County; he also ordered a delay in the trial, I presume to give the principals a chance to find a suitable venue to try the attorney general.<\/p>\n<p>This is a bit of a surprise to me.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s because a Collin County <em>grand<\/em>\u00a0jury indicted Paxton on securities charges stemming from an allegation that he misled investors involved in a company with which Paxton was involved before he was elected attorney general in 2014.<\/p>\n<p>The way I figured at the time, if a grand jury comprising peers of the attorney general would indict him, then surely a trial judge could find a suitable pool of trial jurors to hear the case and then decide on his guilt or innocence.<\/p>\n<p>Paxton, you see, represented Collin County in the Texas Legislature before running for AG three years ago.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2017\/03\/30\/judge-orders-ken-paxton-trial-moved-out-collin-county-and-delayed\/\">Paxton has suffered a stinging defeat <\/a>to be sure. He now is going to stand before jurors who are ostensibly neutral in this case, who don&#8217;t know the AG personally or who&#8217;ve never had the chance to vote for him while he served in the Legislature.<\/p>\n<p>Then again, he is a statewide elected official. Which makes me wonder: Where can one find a jury pool that is <em>totally<\/em> neutral?<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ken Paxton wanted to be tried by a jury of his peers in his home county in Texas. State lawyers who are prosecuting him on charges of securities fraud said the Texas attorney general&#8217;s legal team had poisoned the jury pool and asked the judge for a change of venue. Today, the judge agreed and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=20723\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Texas AG handed surprising setback<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,18],"tags":[1063,2652,4177,4585],"class_list":["post-20723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-news","category-state-news","tag-collin-county","tag-ken-paxton","tag-securities-fraud","tag-texas-attorney-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20723"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20725,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20723\/revisions\/20725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}