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The Porteous Impeachment: Post-Trial Brief

We have filed our post-trial brief in the Senate Impeachment Trial of United States District Court Judge Thomas Porteous. The brief, linked below, presents the factual record on each of the articles of impeachment after the conclusion of the Senate trial. We are expecting final arguments to be heard in December before all 100 Senators on the Senate floor.


The brief was submitted the day before I left for France and I never got a chance to post it.

I cannot include the link to the post-trial brief of the House because the Senate has rejected the submission of the House pre-trial brief due to the inclusion of material excluded from evidence by the Senate. The House has been ordered to remove various quotations and citations to legal experts who were called by the House to support impeachment. Such testimony on the ultimate legal question is routinely excluded from trials and has never been introduced as expert testimony in a Senate trial. This was previously made clear by the Senate in this case, so the House has been ordered to resubmit its post-trial brief at a future date.

Here is the Porteous Post-Trial Brief: 10.29.10 – Porteous Post-Trial Brief

Jonathan Turley

28 thoughts on “The Porteous Impeachment: Post-Trial Brief”

  1. Thank you. We got our first 1″ snow yesterday in Louisville, KY. It’s beginning to look alot like Christmas a little earlier this year. Merry Christmas to you and yours. We’ll talk next Tuesday after I watch C-SPAN, assuming this will be on tv. All the best, Frank

  2. Thanks for the update, Frank.

    By the way, I hope you’re having a wonderful holiday season.

  3. Summations/Closing arguments to be held on Tuesday 12-7-2010 before the full senate. Last info was both sides would have 2 hours to summarize their cases. Jon and team Porteous need to convince 34/100 senators to vote “Not Guilty” on each of the 4 articles of impeachment. Good Luck to Jonathan and co-counsel next week. Frank

    FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER ONLINE 12-4-2010:

    Senate to decide fate of impeached federal judge
    The Associated Press 12/04/10 11:55 AM
    The Associated Press
    .
    The Senate is set to begin deciding Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2010 whether to remove Porteous from Louisiana after the House impeached him on corruption charges. Porteous could become just thThe Senate is set to begin deciding Tuesday whether to remove a federal judge from Louisiana after the House impeached him on corruption charges.

    The House voted unanimously in March to bring four articles of impeachment against G. Thomas Porteous (POR’-tee-us). A two-thirds Senate vote is needed to convict. Porteous could become just the eighth federal judge to be removed from the bench.

    A Senate committee has finished the evidence-gathering phase and will present its report to the full Senate.

    House prosecutors say Porteous began accepting cash and other favors from people with business before his court, beginning as a state judge.

    Defense lawyers have sought to portray his behavior as business as usual in the New Orleans-area legal community.
    .

    Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/news/nation/2010/12/senate-decide-fate-impeached-federal-judge#ixzz17GS4nObf

  5. “All of the senator-elects who won on November 2, 2010 will not be sworn in at the time of this proceeding, if held before Christmas. So Kentucky’s newest, Rand Paul, a republican/tea-party candidate will not be there to share his wisdom with the group.” (Frank III)

    Chuckle 🙂

  6. INFO ON NEWLY ELECTED SENATORS; TO BE SEATED ON JANUARY 3, 2011

    Term

    Senators serve terms of six years each; the terms are staggered so that approximately one-third of the seats are up for election every two years. This was achieved by dividing the senators of the 1st Congress into thirds (called classes), where the terms of one-third expired after two years, the terms of another third expired after four, and the terms of the last third expired after six years. This arrangement is also implemented following the admission of new states into the union. The staggering of terms has been arranged such that both seats from a given state are not contested in the same general election, except when a mid-term vacancy is being filled. Current senators whose six-year terms will expire on January 3, 2011, belong to Class III.

    A member who has been elected, but not yet seated, is called a “senator-elect”; a member who has been appointed to a seat, but not yet seated, is called a “senator-designate”. Also, out of the two senators a state has, the one who has been serving longer is referred to as the “senior senator” while the latter “junior senator”.

  8. ABOVE 8 PAGES REPRODUCED FROM ONLINE ARTICLE POSTED IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:

    Fifth Circuit Takes New Orleans Judge Thomas Porteous to Task …
    For the foreseeable future, New Orleans federal judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr. will have a much lighter load. The Judicial Council of the Fifth Circuit issued a reprimand on …

    blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/09/12/fifth-circuit-takes-new-orleans-judge-thomas-porteous-to-task · Cached page

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