Judge weighs moving Paxton’s case, again
A Harris County judge said Tuesday he will rule by the end of next month on Attorney General Ken Paxton’s request to move his felony securities fraud case back to his home county.
Judge Robert Johnson avoided getting into other issues raised in the case until he decides whether to send it back to Collin County, where it originated nearly four years ago.
Special prosecutor Kent Schaffer — who opposed Paxton’s motion to move the case — said after Tuesday’s hearing that he thinks Johnson “will make the right decision” and that he believes “with a high degree of certainty” that Paxton will go to trial by spring 2020.
Paxton, a Republican who was re-elected in November 2018, was indicted in July 2015 by a grand jury in Collin County after being charged with two counts of first-degree felony securities fraud and a third-degree felony charge of selling securities without registering with the state. The twoterm attorney general has maintained his innocence.
Paxton is accused of encouraging investors, including friends and a Texas lawmaker, in 2011 to invest in a technology startup without disclosing that he was being paid by the firm. He is also accused of soliciting clients for his friend’s investment company without registering with the state.
The case has been delayed for nearly four years now for reasons ranging from the change of venue request to courtroom damage due to Hurricane Harvey to an ongoing disagreement between Collin County officials and special prosecutors over what they ought to be paid for their work.
It was Paxton’s political influence in Collin County that led a judge to move the case to Harris County in the first place. In 2017, Judge George Gallagher sided with prosecutors who argued that Paxton could not receive a fair trial in the county where many of his friends and political allies live and hold positions of power.
The Collin County district attorney, for example, recused himself from the case because of a friendship with Paxton, a former state legislator.
Paxton’s lawyers argue that Gallagher exceeded his authority in changing the venue in the first place because his temporary assignment to the case had expired months before he made the decision.
They’ve also said that public attention on Paxton’s indictment has waned since 2016 when the case was the talk of “blogs, media and Facebook posts.” Plus, Collin County is betterequipped to take the case as well, they say, because the Harris County court system is already overburdened.
Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University who has studied the case, said a return to Collin County would be a big win for Paxton.
“One, it’s more likely to go to a Republican judge as opposed to a Democratic judge in Harris County,” Jones said in an interview last summer. “And any jury pool is going to be much more sympathetic to Paxton in Collin versus Harris.”
Johnson said he will rule Jan. 29 on the pending motion to move the trial.