More on politically motivated prosecutions: The Hutchinson case.

In a post below on the indictment of Texas governor Rick Perry by a Travis County grand jury, I mentioned the indictment of Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson. Sometimes a little historical perspective can be helpful.  On this topic, Wikipedia provides:

"Hutchison was elected Texas State Treasurer in 1990 and served until June 1993 when she ran against Senator Bob Krueger for the right to complete the last two years of Lloyd Bentsen's term. Bentsen had resigned in January 1993 to become Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton administration. Krueger had been appointed by Texas Governor Ann Richards to fill the seat until a replacement was elected.
A field of 24 candidates sought to fill Bentsen's unexpired term, in the May 1993 special election.^[12] The top two vote-getters were Hutchison (593,338, or 29 percent) and Krueger (593,239, also 29 percent). Two conservative Republican congressmen, Joe Barton of Dallas (284,135 or 13.9 percent) and Jack Fields of Houston (277,560, or 13.6 percent) split pro-life voters, but even their combined totals, 561,693, would have placed neither in the runoff. A fifth candidate, Democrat Richard W. Fisher, son-in-law of Republican former U.S. Representative James M. Collins, polled 165,564 votes (8.1 percent); the remaining candidates had about 6 percent combined. Running far behind the pack was the Houston conservative political activist and former crusading journalist Clymer Wright, father of his city's 1991 term-limits initiative. Lou Zaeske, an engineer from Bryan, who in 1988 had spearheaded the English-only movement in Texas, polled barely 2,000 votes.
During the campaign Krueger charged that Hutchison was a "country club Republican" and insensitive to the feelings of minorities.^[13] In January, the Houston Chronicle reported that both Hutchison and Fields had promised to serve a maximum of two six-year terms in the Senate as part of her support for term limit legislation for members of Congress. In April, the Dallas Morning News reported that Hutchison had repeated her pledge to serve only two terms in the U.S. Senate, if elected, and had also said term limits ought to cover all senators, including Senator Phil Gramm (Republican), who had been elected in 1984 and re-elected in 1990. (He would stay in the Senate until 2002.) The term-limits legislation never passed, and Hutchison has said that she would not leave the Senate in the absence of such legislation, because doing so would unilaterally hurt Texas at the expense of other states in the seniority-driven institution.
After the initial voting, most of the Barton and Fields voters switched to Hutchison, who won the runoff, 1,188,716 (67.3 percent) to 576,538 (32.7 percent). Lower turnout in the runoff resulted in a decrease in Krueger's vote total, by 17,000. Hutchison became the first woman to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate.
Following Hutchison's election in 1993, Texas has had two sitting Republican U.S. senators.

1993 indictments for misconduct as Texas Treasurer[edit]

On June 10, 1993, shortly after the special election victory, Travis County authorities, led by Democratic district attorney Ronnie Earle, raided Hutchison's offices at the State Treasury. The search was conducted without a warrant, as incident to service of the indictments in the case.^[14] Subsequently, after two other grand jury indictments were thrown out, Hutchison was indicted a 3rd time ^[15] by a Texas grand jury in September 1993 for official misconduct and records tampering. Hutchison stated that she was the innocent victim of a politically motivated prosecutor. Earle acknowledged that he had sought appointment by Democratic Governor Ann Richards, to the same U.S. Senate seat which Hutchison was ultimately elected to, but he has denied that his legal actions against Hutchison were politically motivated.^[16] The case against Hutchison was heard before State District Judge John Onion in February 1994. Pre-trial motions included a Motion to Quash evidence Earle obtained without a warrant when raiding the Treasurer's office. During pre-trial proceedings, the judge did not rule on admissibility. Following the lack of a ruling, Earle declined to proceed with his case.^[14] Onion swore in a jury and directed the jury to acquit Hutchison, since Earle chose not to present evidence.^[14] The acquittal barred any future prosecution of Hutchinson."

I am  not a fan of  Republican House Majority leader Tom DeLay who was also indicted in Travis County and convicted.  His conviction is on appeal.  Sometimes this office in Travis County may work successfully  without partisan bias.    For more on this case see Wikipedia.