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In Texas, The Hammer Runs Into an Anvil
Prosecutor Ronnie Earle put off his retirement to take on Tom DeLay.
(By Thomas Terry -- Associated Press)
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The case embarrassed Earle, who rarely tries cases himself, and led many to question his motives -- specifically that he had no intention of bringing the case against Hutchison to trial and filed it only to embarrass her.
The episode distills a tension that has run through Earle's career between his abundant sense of outrage and the actual merits of certain cases.
In "The Big Buy," an assistant district attorney in Earle's office, Rosemary Lehmberg, says that Earle has pursued the DeLay case despite objections within the office. "Ronnie was the only person in maybe a group of six or seven lawyers in a room who thought we ought to go ahead and investigate," she says.
"One of these guys is not going to come out of this," Keel said, referring to Earle's prosecution of DeLay. He predicts it will be Earle who doesn't.
Not so, says Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.), who served briefly in the state legislature with Earle in the mid-1970s.
"He would not bring this case, at what is probably the end of his career, unless it was a case with great merit," Doggett said.
Earle says he has no choice. He was hoping to retire last year, he says, but felt he could not abandon this case.
"The issue that we're faced with is the role of large concentrations of money in democracy, whether it's individuals or corporations," he said. "The issue is the same."
Juliet Eilperin reported from Austin. Staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.
