U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent has finally resigned after Congress expedited his impeachment and Senate trial. In a remarkably dim-witted act, Kent’s lawyer announced that they had calculated that Congress could not possibly complete an impeachment and start a trial for a year. Thus, he decided that he would resign in a year to continue to bilk the government for salary and benefits. The inevitable result was that an infuriated Congress expedited the process.
If Kent had simply remained quiet and not revealed his clever legal strategy, Congress may have proceeded at a normal pace. However, by announcing his calculation and offering a delayed resignation, Kent guaranteed this result.
He will now be cut off from his $174,000 a year salary in prison. Kent handed his resignation, effective June 30th, 2009, to the Senate’s sergeant-at-arms during an official prison visit.
Kent’s defense and attitude has cost him the little support that he had remaining in this scandal. I have spoken with many lawyers who practiced in front of him who have described him as arrogant and abusive. However, nothing foreshadowed his lack of dignity and discretion as a criminal defendant.
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I spoke to almost every lawyer in Texas about him. The term used by most was that he lacked judicial demeanor. In 2001, the Chief Judge of the Southern District of Texas reassigned 85 cases away from Judge Kent that were being handled by Richard Melancon, an attorney who was considered a close friend of the Judge.http://galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=7ae3063bbaf9cd27 or as I was told if you want to win your case you better give Richard a lot of money or you had to trade one case for another. I was told that before any of the problems Kent claimed led to his demise. How many times was he fined by the fifth circuit? Quite a few as I recall. How can anyone believe that Kent’s rulings were appropriate in the vast majority of his cases. We need to learn that judical rulings and judges are not sacred. We need to have grand juries investigate judiciary at the drop of a hat. That is the only way I can think of that will end judicial corruption.
Buddha is that C’YA such as See Ya or Cover Your Ass? Either way it is a good result.
Or did I mean CYA.
It’s a tragedy when slang crashes into acronyms.
bok bok BOK! Ba kaw! bok bok bok bok
Cya, “Judge”.
Is it polite to say that Judge, er, Mr Kent looks like a Pecker Head.
His time in prison may help his appearance.
rafflaw has a point, but that would be too obvious a sign of true integrity of our system.
I wish W had hit a bong, then at least we could have put him away forever.
Congress did the right thing by expediting the processs. I only wish that they had moved this quickly to impeach Bush for ordering torture.