AUSTIN, Texas _ Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is asking for his criminal trials to be moved back to Collin County and the presiding judge removed, saying any decisions made in the case after 2016 are null and void.
Paxton, who faces three felony charges of violating state securities laws, asked an administrative court to vacate any and all rulings made in his case after Dec. 31, 2016. He claims presiding Judge George Gallagher was only temporarily assigned to serve in the region that includes Collin County up and until, but not after, that date.
First Administrative Court Judge Mary Murphy assigned Gallagher to the case after the original judge, Chris Oldner, recused himself. But Gallagher was only on temporary loan to Murphy's administrative region. His court is in Tarrant County, which is included in the Eighth Administrative Judicial Region, not the First.
Gallagher's temporary assignment first expired at the end of 2015, and then it was extended until Dec. 31, 2016. Because a trial had not yet started by that time, Paxton's lawyers claim Gallagher's assignment ended that night.
In April, Gallagher ruled that Paxton's upcoming criminal trials would be moved to Harris County. Prosecutors had argued the jury pool in Collin County, where Paxton has lived and worked for years, might skew in his favor, citing attempts by the attorney general's friends to cut off the prosecution's funding and malign their efforts as well as Gallagher's.
Since this decision was made this year, Paxton asked that it be vacated and any further decisions in the case be made by Collin County District Judge Andrea Thompson. She was elected last year, after Judge Chris Oldner decided to exit politics. Thompson was the district clerk in 2015, when someone in her office accidentally released the names of the grand jurors who indicted Paxton to 93 people, including members of the media, via email. Thompson later demoted the staffer.
This is the third time Paxton has sought Gallagher's removal. The judge has until now refused to step down from the case, saying he plans to continue presiding through the trial phase.
Paxton's first of two trials is currently scheduled to kick off in Houston in mid-September. The attorney general faces a maximum 99 years in prison and tens of thousands in fines for allegedly duping investors into buying stock in a North Texas technology firm without disclosing he was receiving a commission; he is also accused of failing to register with the state while making a commission off funneling clients to a friend's investment firm.
