BTW Deb, that Bennis, googled is one big wacko.
The fact that Delay was convicted of a law that didn’t exist at the time was actually reported in the Houston Chronicle. The story was written in a manner that it didn’t matter anyway that DeLay deserved to be convicted. The local media just breathlessly reported that he could have been given a life sentence for this conviction. This was an out in the open political trial. If the prosecuter, Ronnie Earle is not held accountable, this kind of garbage will continue and ramp up.
This event from beginning to present has been clouded in suspicion regarding the DA and what laws apply. It is well known that the DA went through at least three Grand Juries to get indictments. DeLay and two of his associates, Jim Ellis and John Colyandro, were indicted. Ellis and Colyandro haven't gone to trial yet. However they appealed their indictments to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and lost.
One of the indictments against DeLay was a violation of the Texas Election Code. This is the one that the Code wasn't in place when the charged incident occurred. Judge Priest threw that indictment out in 2005 but let stand the other two Criminal indictments which DeLay went to trial on.
Those two indictments were a novel approach to the use of the Texas Criminal Statutes regarding money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. It was a first time to be used as they were and many thought and still think they aren't a valid use. Anyway DeLay was convicted under those two indictments using the Criminal Statutes which have been in place prior to the money transfer event. Also the prohibition against corporate money to state politicians has been around since 1905 or that's what I've read.
It will be interesting to see what the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals does when the appeal gets on their docket. DeLay’s lawyer still thinks it will be reversed but he also never thought a conviction would be the outcome in the trial. A trial in another venue may well have produced a different outcome.
Just my ramblings of the event. Here is a link to a Wiki page that gives some info and timelines of the events. Take it all with a grain of salt:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_DeLay_campaign_finance_investigation