Lawyers prosecuting Paxton appeal ruling blocking payment

Three lawyers appointed to prosecute Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday asked the state’s highest criminal court to over- turn a lower-court ruling that blocked them from getting paid for more than a year of work on the case.

Unless overturned, the rul- ing “will have a chilling effect on the ability of trial judges to appoint qualified lawyers — defense attorneys and special prosecutors alike — will- ing to take on the most complicated and serious cases,” the prosecutors told the Court of Criminal Appeals.

Last month, the Dallas-based 5th Court of Appeals voided a bill for about $200,000 in payments to the prosecutors for more than a year of work on the case, mostly in 2016. The prose- cutors have not submitted a bill for work done this year.

Although unstated in the appeal, allowing the ruling to stand could derail the prosecution of Paxton on two charges of securities fraud and one charge of failing to register with state securities regulators during private business deals in 2011 and 2012.

Paxton has pleaded not guilty to the charges, delivered by a Collin County grand jury in the summer of 2015.

Collin County had already paid $242,000 to the prosecutors for work done on the Paxton case in 2015, and county officials filed suit, saying the $300 hourly rate — promised by a judge who is no longer involved in the case — was excessive. The appeals court agreed, ruling that the hourly rate exceeds what is allowed under state law and county rules.

Collin County officials have since voted to sue the prosecutors to recover previously paid money.

Paxton’s trial on the failure to register charge is scheduled to begin Dec. 11 in Houston, where his trial was moved earlier this year after prosecutors argued that they could not get a fair trial in Collin County, where Paxton lives.