… Excellent (Pro Life Decision in Texas) …

… from CNSnews …

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled that most of Texas’ tough new abortion restrictions can take effect immediately — a decision that means a third of the state’s clinics that perform the procedure won’t be able to do so starting as soon as Friday.

A panel of judges at the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans said the law requiring doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital can take effect while a lawsuit challenging the restrictions moves forward. The panel issued the ruling three days after District Judge Lee Yeakel said the provision serves no medical purpose.

In its 20-page ruling, the appeals court panel acknowledged that the provision “may increase the cost of accessing an abortion provider and decrease the number of physicians available to perform abortions.” However, the panel said that the U.S. Supreme Court has held that having “the incidental effect of making it more difficult or more expensive to procure an abortion cannot be enough to invalidate” a law that serves a valid purpose, “one not designed to strike at the right itself.”

The panel left in place a portion of Yeakel’s order that prevents the state from enforcing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration protocol for abortion-inducing drugs in cases where the woman is between 50 and 63 days into her pregnancy. Doctors testifying before the court had said such women would be harmed if the protocol were enforced.

After Yeakel halted the restrictions, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott had made an emergency appeal to the conservative 5th Circuit, arguing that the law requiring doctors to have admitting privileges is a constitutional use of the Legislature’s authority.

“This unanimous decision is a vindication of the careful deliberation by the Texas Legislature to craft a law to protect the health and safety of Texas women,” Abbott, a Republican who is running for governor, said in a written statement.  Lawyers for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers had argued that the regulations do not protect women and would shut down a third of the 32 abortion clinics in Texas.

Twelve of Texas’ abortion clinics won’t be able to perform the procedure starting as soon as Friday.  In a statement Thursday, Planned Parenthood said the appeals court decision means “abortion will no longer be available in vast stretches of Texas . ”        “This fight is far from over,” Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards said in the statement. “This restriction clearly violates Texas women’s constitutional rights by drastically reducing access to safe and legal abortion statewide.”

The court’s order is temporary until it can hold a complete hearing, likely in January.

.. LEC again here — Excellent news out of Texas — the activist witch district court judge ‘ s ruling was struck down . Only in part , for now . When the case comes up for argument in front of the appeallate court panel in January (presumably , in front of the same judges) , the case can likely come after the entire district court ruling . The fact that the same judicial panel will hear the case bodes well for the subject material at hand …

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… Tom Delay is Vindicated , While the State of Texas is Shamed …

.. It is a scandal that there has been and will be no serious jail time in the matter of former Republican majority leader Tom DeLay — not obviously for Delay , but for Ronnie Earle, the hyperpartisan Democratic prosecutor whose risible case against DeLay has just been finally thrown out by the Third District Texas Court of Appeals, richly deserves to be measured for an all-orange wardrobe. After eleven years, the matter of Mr. DeLay’s fund-raising in the 2002 election cycle has been finally put to rest, with Mr. Earle’s case having been vivisected by Justice Melissa Goodwin, who in her quietly scathing opinion did not bother even to consider six of the eight points raised by Mr. DeLay’s defense, finding the first two sufficient to snuff out what is in theory a prosecution but is in fact a persecution.

.. To charge Mr. DeLay with money laundering and conspiracy to commit same was a desperate maneuver never destined to stand up to final judgment. That is because to be guilty of money laundering, one must be guilty of producing the money in question through some prior felony offense. There was never any serious evidence that Mr. DeLay had done so. His alleged wrongdoing under campaign-finance laws consisted of using corporate “soft money” donations to offset “hard money” campaign donations in order to circumvent the Texas law prohibiting direct corporate contributions to political candidates. Never mind that Mr. DeLay was never convicted of any such offense — indeed, never mind that such an offense is not criminal — there was never any evidence that he had even come close to committing such a violation. The court had just thrown our Mr. Earle’s first indictment alleging that he had. That act itself should have eliminated any trial whatsoever , including the possibility of another indictment . It is the definition of double jeopardy .

.. Delay ‘ s conviction was a product of judicial incompetence at the trial-court level . It was also attested to by Justice Goodwin’s

Tom DeLay, former member of the United States House of Representatives. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

opinion. The jury, justifiably confused about how Mr. DeLay could be convicted of money laundering without an underlying crime producing dirty money to be laundered, sent the judge a question: “Can it constitute money laundering if the money wasn’t procured by illegal means originally?” Justice Goodwin again: “The proper answer to the question is ‘no.’ The jury’s question about the law was not answered, however.” Which is to say, the judge refused to answer an explicit jury inquiry about the fundamental legal question at stake in the case.

.. Judges are generally not required to answer questions all that often . However , when the needs of justice demand it , and the rights of the defendant are at stake , a judge should answer a jury ‘ s question . In the Delay case , the jury asked an explicit question about the law at question in the case . The jury itself was confused . The judge should have acted to clear up the confusion He did not . Doing so denied Delay the bounds of fundamental procedural due process .

.. Earle, who was hot off an earlier failed attempt to use his office to engage in a similar political persecution of Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, promptly put Mr. DeLay’s scalp at the end of his lance and began considering a run for governor or attorney general. In the event, he would run for lieutenant governor and be defeated in the Democratic primary. He has since lapsed into well-deserved obscurity. Not quite yet . He yet needs to be called to account .

.. Tom Delay is not a criminal. On the other hand, his defense team’s complaint alleging criminal misconduct on the part of Mr. Earle is persuasive. Unhappily, the same Democratic single-party rule in Travis County (Austin and environs) that allowed Mr. Earle’s circus of a case against Tom DeLay to proceed in the first place ensured that he was never held to account for his gross and shameful abuse of the public trust. Mr. DeLay did not earn his nickname, “The Hammer,” for being a nice guy, but the attempt of Texas Democrats to criminalize politics, and the decade-plus persecution of Mr. DeLay that resulted from it, is an act of corruption in the most literal sense of that word, eroding the legal and political institutions that enable democratic self-rule in a constitutional republic. Mr. DeLay has cause to celebrate today, but for the rest of us this matter, even though properly resolved at last, is a cause for nothing but shame.

.. the Texas Supreme Court and Texas Attorney General ‘ s office need to investigate this entire proceeding . Tom Delay is from Houston . How this case was transferred from Harris County (where the case should have been judged) to Travis County (where it was ultimately adjudicated) is the height of outrageous . Delay deserved a jury of his peers . In Travis County , he did not get them . Also , the conduct of Ronnie Earle needs to be thoroughly investigated . No matter where he may be , Earle needs to be held to account for his actions . Also , it needs to be handled at the state level . That way , no prosecutor who has any designs of repeating Earle ‘ s exercise will be made to think twice . Once Earle is hauled before the dock , prosecutors will understand their offices and their powers theirin are not a hunting license to go after political enemies with a free range license to destroy them .

.. If someone has indeed committed a crime , then evaluate the case . Then , only after the decision , then go after the person . But  , not because they are an enemy . It is because they may well have committed a crime , and deserve to be brought to account before the bar of  Jusice . It is clear that Delay was not a criminal , did not commit a crime , and the law he was accused of breaking was not a law at the time he was accused of breaking it . Only in rare circumstances should a prosecutor be hauled into the dock . If they have done what Ronnie Earle did , then they deserve to be .

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