AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry sat quietly during his first court appearance Thursday on coercion and abuse-of-office charges as his attorney equated faulty paperwork with the disintegration of constitutional law.
What might have been a routine pretrial hearing was transformed by a media-packed courtroom and legal showmanship, complete with a PowerPoint presentation to display the Texas Constitution.
State District Judge Bert Richardson heard arguments over legal paperwork that was signed and filed, but Perry’s lawyers believe it was not done in the proper order, placed in the correct folder or made readily available.
The special prosecutor, Michael McCrum, countered that the Perry defense team is throwing out “red herrings” to distract the public. “It’s just malarkey,” he told the court.
Perry, a Republican who is leaving state office but still has presidential ambitions, is fighting accusations that he unlawfully tried to force Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg out of office.
Perry has said that he and the public had lost confidence in Lehmberg after she pleaded guilty to a messy drunken-driving offense.
He relayed to Lehmberg that he would veto $7.5 million for a state anti-corruption unit run out of the Democrat’s office unless she resigned. When she refused to step down, he made good on his threat in June 2013. Perry would have named her replacement.
In a statement after the hearing Thursday, Perry cast the charges as an attempt to stop him and future governors from exercising their right to veto legislation.
“I stand behind that veto, and I would make that veto again,” he said.
Inside the courtroom, a hearing that the judge said he expected to last 15 minutes went on for almost two hours. Perry entered the court with his own security detail, wearing a charcoal suit and coral tie printed with miniature dachshunds. While Perry said nothing inside the courtroom, his lawyer Tony Buzbee made a showing.
“The whole way this came about is a comedy of errors. But it’s not funny,” Buzbee proclaimed.
The issue revolved around McCrum, who conceded that when given the post, he took his oath of office first before signing an anti-bribery pledge minutes later. The Constitution states the order of those events should have been reversed.
Buzbee said the Texas Constitution spells out the way oaths should be handled, and therefore “it should be a slam dunk to dismiss this case.”
“If we start picking and choosing which provisions of the Constitution we’re going to follow, then we are in anarchy and chaos,” Buzbee said.
McCrum disputed that. The judge indicated he would rule on the defense motions next week.
Lehmberg has recused herself and her office from participating in the Perry case, and so a Republican judge appointed McCrum to guide the investigation in August 2013. Richardson, who is presiding over the case, is also a Republican.
Buzbee told the court that he knows his objections are technical and procedural, but he called them vital to the cause of justice.
“If you’re going to take away someone’s freedom, it’s not too much to ask you follow the letter of the law,” Buzbee said.
By filing the paperwork wrong, McCrum “failed to qualify. He cannot act. Game over,” Buzbee said.
McCrum said case law shows that no objections raised by Buzbee negate the authority of a special prosecutor.
“The law is clear,” McCrum said.
The defense team also tried to show that the Perry case was handled differently from other cases.
While the grand jury was still investigating, a number to track the case was created. That had only been done once before, in the case of former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.
Buzbee treated the case number as a major revelation, indicating it showed a political motive in the prosecution.
McCrum said it was a file folder, created to make it easier for the defense to file motions.
“It’s pretty obvious that some arguments were made to play out to the media and to make some inflammatory arguments that have no basis in law or basis in fact, even, just to get the attention of the electorate,” he said after the hearing.
He said he expected the judge to follow the law and rule in favor of the prosecution.
Three other defense efforts to throw out the charges as unconstitutional are also pending.
Follow Christy Hoppe on Twitter at @christyhoppe.
