Paxton lawyers seek to disqualify 3 Democratic senators as impeachment jurors (and fail)

Note: The Dallas Morning News is reporting that the impeachment lawyers rejected the request to remove the three Democratic senators as jurors. I do not have a subscription so I cannot readily obtain that article.


Lawyers for suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton are pushing to disqualify three Democratic state senators as jurors in his upcoming impeachment trial.

Paxton’s lawyers filed a motion Friday that asks Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to disqualify Sens. Nathan Johnson of Dallas, Roland Gutierrez of San Antonio and José Menéndez of San Antonio, arguing they have a proven bias against Paxton.

“Like numerous courts around the country, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has held for almost a century that potential jurors with a bias or prejudice against the accused are disqualified from serving on his jury as a matter of law,” the motion said. “Jurors José Menendez, Roland Gutierrez, and Nathan Johnson have such a bias and have proclaimed it loudly, time and again.”

The motion cites a number of critical public statements that the senators have made about Paxton over the years, including some in recent weeks. For example, it points to an MSNBC interview last month in which Gutierrez, who is also a candidate for U.S. Senate next year, said the evidence the House gathered “could not be refuted.”

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2023/07/21/ken-paxton-impeachment-disqualify-democrats/