Today's Houston Chronicle reports, "Attorneys: DA saga taints death penalty retrial." It's by Brian Rogers.
Defense lawyers for Carl Wayne Buntion, whose death penalty retrial is set to start next week, want to postpone the case - or get a special prosecutor.
They didn't file the eleventh-hour request because of a surprise witness or new evidence.
The lawyers say there is no way their client can get a fair trial, because employees of the Harris County District Attorney's Office have been tainted - they've been asked questions by the FBI and Texas Rangers.
"Mr. Buntion is entitled to be prosecuted by a District Attorney and assistant district attorneys who are neither witnesses in nor targets of a criminal prosecution," reads a motion to suspend prosecution or appoint a special prosecutor.
The request, signed by Buntion's attorneys Casey Keirnan and Phillip Scardino, was filed Wednesday a day after media reports began to emerge that law enforcement officials have been talking to district attorney employees about allegations the office investigated the grand jurors who for six months investigated her office.
Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos has said she asked her chief investigator to do an "internet search" into possible political connections between grand jurors, two judges and a political opponent of the district attorney.
She has said it was not an "investigation."
Lawyers for Buntion immediately seized on the news to try change the landscape of the coming trial.
Jurors are expected to spend about three weeks hearing evidence before deciding whether Buntion should be executed for gunning down Houston police officer James Irby during a traffic stop in 1990.
The punishment phase of several death penalty cases, including Buntion's, are being retried because jury instructions used in those cases were later deemed unconstitutional.
Houston ABC affiliate KTRK-TV reports, "DA probe starting to affect trials?" It's by Ted Oberg.
One day after we broke the news about the FBI and Texas Rangers' inquiry into the Harris County District Attorney's Office, we have learned it could have an impact on the punishment for a man convicted of killing a police officer.
It is hard to imagine how a convicted cop killer could use the DA's troubles to stop his re-sentencing, but Carl Buntion is trying.
Buntion killed Houston Police Office James Irby in 1990 and was sent to death row. Appeals courts, though, ruled his original jury didn't have enough information on Buntion's mental illness and troubled childhood and ordered a re-sentencing. A new jury is almost seated.
But after word leaked that the Texas Rangers and FBI are digging around the DA's office, Buntion's lawyers asked a judge to stop the case.
"We think the trial should stop and be investigated," said Buntion's lawyer, Phillip Scardino.
The FBI and Texas Rangers apparently want to know what District Attorney Pat Lykos and her team did once they found out a grand jury was investigating the DA's office.
Lykos initially denied, but then admitted asking investigators to look into the private lives of grand jurors.
Buntion's team says Lykos herself makes decisions about who they will seek the death penalty against, and if there is even the hint of impropriety surrounding Lykos, this case can't go forward.
KTRK has an archive of the latest questions about the Harris County District Attorney's office.
Problems with Texas' jury charge in death penalty cases were first ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the 1989 case, Penry v. Lynaugh. That ruling was more fully applied following the 2007 case, Abdul-Kabir v. Quarterman; more on both cases via Oyez.
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