Happy Valentine's, Chuck

A dispute between Harris County grand jurors who returned an indictment against a Texas Supreme Court justice, but were rebuffed by DA Chuck Rosenthal, now goes to court. From the press release:

In what is believed to be the first suit of its kind in Texas history, members of a Harris County grand jury who indicted Texas Supreme Court Justice David Medina and his wife, Francisca Medina, for charges stemming from the June 28, 2007, arson of their Houston area home have sued for the right to publicly disclose evidence they considered in handing down the indictments. By law, proceedings before grand juries are usually required to be kept secret.

Once again, the backstory:

On January 17, 2008, the 263rd District Court Grand Jury indicted Francisca Medina for arson and Judge David Medina for evidence tampering. Within an hour, Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal announced that the Medinas would not be prosecuted for the crimes due to “insufficient evidence.” On January 18, 2008, State District Judge Brian Rains dismissed both indictments at the request of Assistant District Attorney Vic Wisner.

And to the complaint:

“This suit is necessary because we want the truth to come out,” said Jeffrey L. Dorrell, assistant foreman of the Medina grand jury, an attorney whose firm, Dorrell & Farris, L.P., is representing grand jurors free of charge. “However, out of a decent respect for the rights of the Medinas and for the integrity of the grand jury system, we believe it is proper to seek a judicial determination of our duties before we speak.” The suit seeks no monetary damages or attorney's fees. ...

“Repeatedly accused of base and corrupt motives and hidden political agendas, grand jurors have been obliged to sit close-mouthed while District Attorney Rosenthal and his assistants trumpet to media that the evidence was 'insufficient' to support either a criminal prosecution of the Medinas or even any further investigation of the charges,” the suit says. The grand jurors want a chance to “respond to the attacks on their character.”

“Only disclosing the evidence will allow Plaintiffs to show convincingly that they were not animated by the vile and contemptible motives of which they have been publicly accused by truly the strangest of bedfellows -- the Medinas' criminal defense attorneys and the Harris County District Attorney's office,” the suit says.

And finally, there is precedent (though the roles are reversed):

Another public dispute between a Houston grand jury and a Harris County District Attorney 85 years ago has many parallels to the Medina case. The Harris County District Attorney in 1923, Dixie Smith, had been elected on the Ku Klux Klan ticket. After Smith publicly accused grand jurors of failing to follow their oath, grand jurors accused Smith of failing to prosecute fellow Klansmen who were suspected of crimes, including an arson. Smith sued for libel. The appellate court in that case wrote:

Every man has the right to defend his character against false aspersion. It is one of the duties which he owes to himself and his family. Therefore communications made in fair self-defense are privileged.

I only have one question. Why hasn't Rosenthal resigned yet?

Update ( 2/15): 'Bout freaking time.

Chuck Rosenthal resigned as Harris County district attorney today amid an e-mail scandal that recently forced him to abandon his re-election campaign and a lawsuit filed today that sought his removal from office.

Bill Delmore, chief of the D.A.'s legal services bureau, which oversees the general counsel's office, confirmed that Rosenthal issued a press release in which he says he contacted the governor's office to tender his resignation.

"Although I have enjoyed excellent medical and pharmacological treatment, I have come to learn that the particular combination of drugs prescribed for me in the past has caused some impairment in my judgment," Rosenthal wrote in his resignation letter.

He's blaming the meds? Okay then.

Rosenthal might be admitting that pharmacological drugs impaired his judgment so he can raise intoxication as a possible defense against a future perjury charge in the contempt case pending against him, (attorney Lloyd) Kelley said.

"He's using that as a defense for perjury," Kelley said. "This just isn't his problem. This goes back to (Harris County Judge) Ed Emmett and the county commissioners — they've known about this and haven't done anything about it. It's just shameful."

One last excerpt here, involving county judge Ed Emmett:

Emmett vehemently denied Kelley's assertion that he was aware of Rosenthal's drug issues, said Joe Stinebaker, the county judge's spokesman.

Emmett doesn't need any more stench of corruption wafting over to his race with Charles Bacarisse for the right to lose to David Mincberg in November. I had lunch today with Mincberg and fellow bloggers Charles Kuffner, muse, and Christof Spielor, and will have something on that later.

Clemens: innocent, or idiot?

Dan Wetzel pontificates on the chinballs Rocket has been throwing at anyone who even intimates he's been juicing, and the ramifications to him if the umpires finally eject him. As regards the choice of labels in the headline ...

There really isn't another option, not after Clemens has so aggressively defended himself against performance-enhancing drug charges that he has, perhaps unwittingly, raised the stakes to felony levels.

Today he and his former trainer and chief accuser, Brian McNamee, will testify in front of a Congressional committee. It's a moment we may just find out what Rocket Roger really is – a man lashing out at false charges or a fool begging for a prison cell.

Clemens may be as guilty of doping as McNamee and a fair amount of common sense say. But he is, at the very least, acting like he is innocent, his lawyer all but daring federal agents to take him on.

Time will tell whether he regrets turning a sports controversy into a federal case.

Clemens' defense was slow to start, but now he's done everything imaginable to assert his innocence. He's filed a defamation lawsuit. He's gone on "60 Minutes." He's held a news conference. He's taped a phone call. He's voluntarily testified under oath. He's welcomed his day in Washington. He's met privately with politicians. He's prepared statistical arguments. He's challenged the slightest of charges with evidence. He's had his lawyers make all sorts of crazy comments.

He's showed how you attempt to prove a negative, with a full-bore attack. It certainly hasn't been perfect and it certainly hasn't proven anything, but it's nonetheless been impressive for its scope and intensity.

The problem for Clemens is that, despite his complaints, the court of public opinion was a far better place for an iconic athlete like himself to fight than a pseudo court of law (and probably eventually a real one), which is where he's pushed this. For all the outrageous back and forth in this cat fight -- old beer cans, golf receipts, his wife in a bathing suit, allegedly enhanced by HGH -- Clemens was perfectly capable of muddying the water enough to win support. He has plenty of willing apologists, from the press box to the box seats.

But they hardly matter now. Everything changed when he willingly swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help him God.

That's why his public relations and legal campaign is so compelling. The natural reaction is to say Clemens might be innocent because he's acting innocent -- forcing all the cards on the table like he has nothing to hide. It's everything we haven't seen out of baseball players, who usually just complain how unfair the accusations are and do nothing. This isn't Mark McGwire refusing to talk about the past and then hiding out in a gated community in California. This isn't Barry Bonds, defiant in some circles and silent in others.

But we also know that perjury is a slow-forming crime, a witness so backed into a corner, so concerned about the damage the truth can bring, that he just continues to lie even as the risks grow greater.

It is what we saw out of sprinter Marion Jones, who loudly and boldly proclaimed her innocence until she was broke, humiliated and en route to six months in the federal clink.

We also know McNamee has been equally aggressive, that he's a former cop who had little to gain by risking prison time for lying, and that his stories are so detailed or over the top they don't sound like lies (you don't just bring Clemens' wife into it out of nowhere). We also know he told the truth about Clemens' friend Andy Pettitte taking HGH.

The smart play for Clemens, assuming he is guilty, might have been to do what Pettitte did: give an admission with qualifiers that will be accepted and excused by most. But Clemens may not be capable of such clear thinking, no matter how carefully his high-powered legal and public relations team explained the consequences to him.

Or, indeed, he may be innocent.

Either way, here's Roger, aggressively attacking anyone in his way, with a series of brush-back pitches that sometimes seem ill-advised.

Was it really smart to have lawyer Rusty Hardin trashtalk IRS special agent Jeff Novitzky, warning him not to show up Wednesday and claiming if he makes a move on Clemens, "Roger will eat his lunch"? That was enough for Rep. Henry Waxman to chastise Hardin for what could "be seen as an attempt to intimidate a federal law enforcement official."

Was it really a good idea to commission a statistical defense of his career resurgence, one that four Ivy League professors ripped to shreds in the New York Times, concluding that the numbers actually, "strongly hint that some unusual factors may have been at play in producing his excellent late-career statistics"?

And mostly, was it really a good idea to testify under oath about this, a move that could turn the scandal from embarrassing to criminal?

We'll see. At this point, the dice have been thrown, and someone is in a lot of trouble.

Clemens spent last week meeting individually with Congressional committee members, trying to use his star power, engaging personality and intimidating presence to gain favor with our easily dazzled and ethically challenged lawmakers. He did all but write campaign checks. Unfortunately for Clemens, now that a perjury charge, either against McNamee or him, seems inevitable, winning over gushing lawmakers won't help much.

That's the chance he took in his all-out blitz; one more chip he pushed into the pile in his all-in gamble to prove his innocence.

If Clemens is clean, then he deserves credit for fighting this fight and proving it. If not, he'll have plenty of time in a prison cell to curse his reckless stupidity.

Richard Justice is live-blogging the Congressional hearing at which McNamee and Clemens have testified.