Former U.S. House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay (R) of Texas, is scheduled to stand trial in Austin, Texas. The charge states he illegally sent $190,000 in corporate money through the Republican National Committee to help elect GOP Texas legislative candidates in 2002.
DeLay is asking the court for a change of venue, from Austin to his home County where he served as Congressman. The former congressman said, "I doubt I can get a fair trial here in Travis County. I think I'm more hated in Travis County than any other politician." He called Austin the "last bastion of liberalism" in the Republican-leaning state. Mr. DeLay's request raises serious issues if the court honors his request for a change of venue to a place where jurors will be more favorable to him on political grounds.
These are tough questions in a society that revolves around political warfare between the two major Parties, and friends and associates are chosen or rejected by many on the basis of what Party they belong to or sympathize with. Isn't justice supposed to be blind to such issues? Whether or not it is supposed to be, he clearly believes justice is not blind to politics and wants to take advantage of that.
The ex-congressman request assumes that Americans in Austin and his home County are prejudiced along political lines and he cannot, therefore get a fair trial in Austin, and can received favored treatment in his conservative home county, Fort Bend, North of Houston. Is DeLay's assumption correct? And if so, what does that say about America, and its people, and its judicial and justice systems?
Most people would agree that a murderer's or rapist's politics would have no meaning to a jury hearing the facts of the defendant's case in most places in America. Why should it be different in a case of money laundering for Tom DeLay? Is there a threshold of severity of the crime that has to be reached before politics no longer becomes a factor?
If a judge should take such considerations into account, then what is to stop a judge from allowing their own politics to determine just where DeLay is to be tried? Is that just? Judges routinely instruct the jury that their decision is to be based exclusively on the facts of the case presented to them. Don't judges have the same responsibility in determining where the case is to be tried? Should politics even enter into the decision of a judge as to where the case should be tried?
There is nothing perfect about America's judicial and justice system, but, it is the best system ever devised, even with its warts and flaws. If in a judge's opinion, a defendant will not likely receive a fair and impartial decision by the jurors in one location, that judge has an obligation to consider another place where that defendant can be more assured of a fair and impartial decision by the jurors.
I don’t believe his request is not to be tried where he is likely to receive a fair and impartial decision. His request is to be tried where he is likely to receive a biased and politically prejudiced decision in his favor; his home County where voters overwhelming elected him, again and again. Like many politicians, this ex-congressman is not concerned with fairness or justice. He is concerned with twisting events to his own personal advantage and saving his skin. He does not seek fairness in his trial as sought by the founding principles of our nation. He seeks partiality and bias from our justice system, in his favor.
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