I attended the swearing-in ceremonies for the new county officials this morning, and it was interesting to watch.\u00c2\u00a0 Even more interesting waiting for the festivities to begin, listening to the courthouse whispers.<\/p>\n
Immediately after the ceremony, I moved over to an adjacent courtroom to listen to the first hearing in David Stuart’s suit to void the August election for General Sessions Judge, on the basis that election law was clearly and deliberately violated.\u00c2\u00a0 Statutory time limits for voting were deliberately not enforced, voter identification was not checked in at least two polling places, and paper ballots were improperly issued in one precinct, but were not used in others where it might have mitigated the delay that caused some to not be able to wait and vote.
\nWhile Judge Blackwood agreed that “certain statutory provisions were violated, and that those violations were deliberate,” he also held that “to void an election, it must also be shown that the violations were in an attempt to affect the outcome.”<\/p>\n
The complaint was that the election was procedurally flawed, but not that the election commission had done so in an attempt to commit election fraud.\u00c2\u00a0 As a result, Blackwood upheld the defendants’ motion to dismiss.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 It’s over, and Don Layton will be General Sessions Judge for eight more years.<\/p>\n
* * *<\/p>\n
Just a few days ago I wrote<\/a> about ex-Judge Thomas Austin, now convict Austin awaiting sentencing on corruption charges.\u00c2\u00a0 In the courtroom this morning, someone grabbed me and out of the blue asked, “Did you know?\u00c2\u00a0 How did you know?”\u00c2\u00a0 I was thoroughly confused, and had to ask what they were talking about.<\/p>\n It was the Austin post on this blog that spurred the question, and it seems that this person knew that Judge Layton and Alan Beauchamp had helped Austin figure out how to set up the driving school and probation department, from which he was receiving kickbacks.\u00c2\u00a0 Layton had bragged about helping Austin set it up, and the person who approached me had heard it firsthand.<\/p>\n No, I didn’t know.\u00c2\u00a0 It just struck me, as I was reading the newspaper last Saturday, that there were some creepy similarities between the fee-for-service offices set up by the court and the potential for malfesance.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just hearsay at this point and does not necessarily mean that there are kickbacks and corruption in our own county, but watch for someone to be looking closely for evidence of wrongdoing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I attended the swearing-in ceremonies for the new county officials this morning, and it was interesting to watch.\u00c2\u00a0 Even more interesting waiting for the festivities to begin, listening to the courthouse whispers. Immediately after the ceremony, I moved over to … Continue reading