Houston attorney Dick DeGuerin said his team was naive in its belief that “principle would win out over politics.”
Harriet ONeill, Erin Epley, Dick DeGuerin and Rusty Hardin, the prosecutors during Texas Attorney General Ken Paxtons impeachment, talk about the trial at The Texas Tribune Festival in Austin on Sept. 23, 2023.
Any hopes were dashed the next morning when the first article of impeachment received support from only 14 senators, well short of the 21 needed to permanently remove Paxton from office, said Dick DeGuerin, Hardin’s co-counsel. The impeachment prosecutors on the panel, including former Texas Supreme Court Justice Harriet O’Neill, said Patrick was courteous when he privately met with lawyers for both sides to hear arguments about motions. That speech, however, raised serious questions about Patrick’s impartiality and perhaps explained why Patrick, as judge, tended to uphold defense arguments to exclude testimony based on hearsay while overruling prosecutors’ hearsay objections, DeGuerin said.
Patrick, responding to criticism that he had stopped Olson from appearing at the trial, said Friday that he never ruled on Olson’s request to quash the subpoena ordering her to testify. Instead, he asked lawyers for both sides if they could come to an agreement, adding that Epley came up with the language eventually used in court — that Olson was present in the Capitol but unavailable to testify.
In a written statement marking his return to office, Paxton equated impeachment proponents with those working to “destroy our beloved nation.” In the end, however, the lawyers agreed that the decision on Olson, the hearsay objections and tight time limits did nothing to change the outcome as 16 of 18 Republican senators voted to acquit Paxton.
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