Judge does not allow Houston Chronicle reporters at Enron hearing

[doxieone]

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/business/2068057

Chronicle shut out of 2 more hearings
Fastow transcript still denied release
By MARY FLOOD
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle

-A federal judge held two more closed hearings in the criminal case against Andrew Fastow and two other former Enron executives on Tuesday and refused to unseal the transcript of a July 28 hearing he also held in secret.

U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt said he might continue to close hearings if he thinks it necessary.

"There are matters that do not need to be discussed in public in ways that embarrasses or humiliates the government or the defense and particularly the court," he said.

Hoyt denied a motion by the Houston Chronicle to make public the record of the closed hearing in July and the two on Tuesday.

[grasswire]

1. OUTRAGEOUS!

It might be embarrassing to the government and the defense!!

[LiberalFighter]

16. The Judge

Judge Hoyt was the federal district court judge who presided over the Kennedy Heights trial in Summer 1997. He was a Republican appointment to the Houston bench of the Southern District of Texas.
MUST READ http://66.12.145.114/vf/hoyt.html

Cases where Judges brought DISHONOR upon the Courthttp://www.informed.org/Courts/Fed%20Dist%20Crt%20S%20TX.htm

[Richardo]

2. The House-Organ Chronicle slept through the entire Enron meltdown...

Continued relentlessly cheerleading the company through Skilling's mysterious resignation in August 2001 and the teetering throughout the rest of the year until the bankruptcy.

Could have been a Pulitzer Prize winning story for them if they had had the guts to go up against the energy elite. (But that would mean the BFEE and all their friends).

Serves them right, I say. They certainly weren't serving Houston or the American public. Let some real journalists give it a shot.

[wryter2000]

3. Aren't trials supposed to be public?

Maybe not in Ashcroft Country. Gag.

[hang a left]

4. That article just referred to

the Constitution with respect to "secret" hearings. That is just out-effing-rageous.

[Bonhomme Richard]

5. ABSOLUTE HORSESHIT!

What country do I live in anymore?

[MoonGod]

6. Just another Reagan appointee...

... dutifully doing his job.

[Old and In the Way]

7. What Party is the Judge affiliated with?

Somehow, I'd bet he's a Republican....

[xray s]

8. That's interesting

There was no delay in leaking testimony of Clinton's sex life to the whole world, but testimony from people who were directly involved in the greatest corporate rip off in history is sealed to prevent people from being embarrassed.

They are putting this whole Enron deal through the motions before they bury it for good out behind the sty at Bush's pig farm.

[Catherine Vincent]

9. ??

"There are matters that do not need to be discussed in public in ways that embarrasses or humiliates the government or the defense and particularly the court," he said.

What kind of crap is this? This judge is no judge!

[Virginian]

10. What is embarrassing is

that the Criminals of Enron have been allowed to go free this long. Why hasn't there already been a trial?

[protect freedom impeach bush now]

11. African-American conservative ??

Is he another rt-wing zealot like Supreme Court Injustice
Thomas ?

mmmmmmmm.......a Reagan era appointee, yet history of working
with Barbara Jordon's campaign manager

http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:gY3CjWXwTVkJ:www.thehoustonlawyer.com/aa_jan02/aa_depart/page52/page52.htm+U.S.+District+Judge+Kenneth+Hoyt+Reagan&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

excerpt -

After graduating from TSU, Judge Hoyt joined a small general practice firm where he worked with one of his law professors and Barbara Jordan’s campaign manager. In addition to gaining legal experience, Judge Hoyt acquired a taste for politics, and in 1979 he unsuccessfully ran for justice of the peace as a Republican. In 1981, Governor Clements appointed him to serve as judge of the 125th District Court. After unsuccessfully seeking election for that position, his term ended. Judge Hoyt ran for a seat on the First Court of Appeals of Texas in 1984 and won


---------------------

but saved this man from death row......

1997 Year End Report: The Death Penalty in 1997

http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:0pzy_es4efYJ:www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?scid=45&did=541+U.S.+District+Judge+Kenneth+Hoyt+Reagan&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Among those released this year was Ricardo Aldape Guerra of Texas. Guerra had been sentenced to death for the murder of a police officer in Houston in 1982. After new evidence revealed that witnesses had been pressured and abused to testify against Guerra, U.S. District Court Judge Kenneth Hoyt, a Reagan appointee, overturned the conviction in 1994, stating that the actions of the police and prosecutors in this case were "outrageous," "intentional" and "done in bad faith," and that their misconduct "was designed and calculated to obtain . . . another 'notch in their guns.'" Judge Hoyt's ruling was unanimously upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals. A new trial was granted to Guerra, but in April of this year Houston District Attorney Johnny Holmes dropped charges instead. Guerra returned to his native Mexico, where ironically he died in an auto accident a few months later.

--------------------

http://newstrove.com/cgi-bin/search.pl?search=andrew+fastow&search_source=news

[Richardo]

12. Another judge in the Clarence Thomas mold...

http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/97/97-20612-cv0.htm

Get this - during an 'environmental racism' trial brought by a largely black neighborhood against Chevron, a writ of mandemus filed by Chevron to get the judge removed from the case included the following:
--------------------------------
The objectionable statements include a comment by the court (Hoyt) in its rejection of a writing indicating a greater incidence of lupus amongst black persons, which Chevron's counsel was planning to use in the cross-examination of plaintiffs' expert, that the writing was of little or no value "because white people wrote it." In lecturing counsel who said "black race" in his questioning, that there was "but one race . . . genetic differences," the judge pronounced: "I don't care what the literature says" and proceeded to make a patently offensive comparison of ethnic differences:

Why do you think Chinese people are short? Because there is so damn much wind over there they need to be short. Why are they so tall in Africa? Because they need to be tall. It's environmental. I mean, you don't jump up and get a banana off the tree if you're only 4 feet. If you're 7 foot tall and you standing in China, then you're going to get blown away when that Siberian wind comes through.


Those comments were followed by a reference to the ultimate wisdom of the Deity and these remarks:

I think He knew that people in China didn't need to be tall and that people in Africa did. I think He knew that people in Africa needed to have this stuff in their skin because, if they didn't, they wouldn't have survived in the jungle. I think He knew that the people in Europe, Great Britain, didn't need it because, if they had that stuff in their skin, they would have died, but, because they don't have the pigmentation, they can live in Europe. Because I have the pigmentation, I can't live in Europe.

Further, in another conference the judge informed counsel: "I would not want to be an employee of Chevron U.S.A. if Chevron loses this case, because I would feel, as a black person, that something bad could happen to me real fast." When counsel for Chevron indicated his distress at this comment the judge continued: "I am distressed that we live in a country this kind of stuff happens."

-----------------------------------
Now: show of hands for everybody who thinks we'll be getting ANY justice out of the Enron cases.

Bueller? Bueller?

[screembloodymurder]

14. Sounds like he was hand picked for the Enron trial

Maybe we could sneak a few of those itsy-bitsy Chinese reporters into the courtroom and they wouldn't be noticed.

[WillyT]

18. Well Then That Explains THIS !!!

From end of article:

<snip>

Although attorneys for the defendants deferred to Hoyt, Enron Task Force prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said the government did not oppose the Chronicle motion to unseal the transcripts.

But the judge said the closed hearing was justified because it enabled him and the two sides to "put their arms around a discovery order and a trial schedule." And, Hoyt said, he need not reserve the right to continue having secret pretrial hearings because his authority to do so is "ordained."

<snip>

ORDAINED??? :wtf::wtf::wtf:

:argh:

On edit PS: This is the future of our Judiciary, and therefore our Democracy, if we don't stop the right, RIGHT NOW!!!

Fuck!!! :nuke:

[MaineDem]

13. Peterson, Kobe but not Enron?

It's important that the public know every tiny detail of the Scott peterson and Kobe Bryant cases because...well, I don't know why. Now with Enron, a case that has wide nationwide implications, we have no right to know?

Yep, to hell in a handbasket. That's where we're being led!!!

[Dover]

15. What about the other major national papers? Where are they?

Where's their outrage and objection?

[Gin]

17. maybe some folks who lost moneyr from those crooks should sit in and

take notes...then tell all.

[sal]

24. Why wouldn't a public citizen be allowed to record it?

?

[Rose Siding]

19. The editor will "continue to press" Hoyt?!!

Why aren't they appealing? Is there precedent for this.

Can you IMAGINE them doing this for anyone worth less than eight figures? Consideration for EMBARRASSMENT of the defense AND the STATE? EVERY trial has the potential to embarrass. Amazing.

Guilty until proven wealthy.

[goforit]

20. UNBELIEVABLE!!!.........This is an obstruction to our freedom of

being informed, our freedom of information and our freedom of speech!

This judge is a traitor to the Constitution of the US!!!!!

He should be admonished!!!!

The people have to appeal this to the highest court!!!

[Bozita]

21. Wow! Secret trials. Can't "embarrass the government" --- WTF?

Gonna go looking for Hoyt's background.

[AngryWhiteLiberal]

22. Yet another reason for kicking Texas out of the Union...

I'm so tired of hearing about Texas and the vast residency of fascist peabrains who live in the state. Screw Texas, it's a lost cause.

JB

[grasswire]

23. kick

I'm still mad.

[MaineDem]

25. Kick for the morning folks (nt)

,

[Nottingham]

26. Houston Chronicle has been on Enron for Years!

and they aren't giving up easily!

That Judge better just be careful!
He could be part of the Conspiracy!!

Cliff Baxter still is dead and Ken Lay walks around like he did nothing!

:puke:

[nolabels]

27. So will they be able to take this along with a lot of other things........

somewhere else. I could be hard to get a square ruling from many places and also not have it turned over by another. The effing courts seem infiltrated with other repub gangsters so I wont be getting too excited about any of it. The little scraps the SCOTUS throws out here and there are just to keep things at bay

http://law2.house.gov/uscode-cgi/fastweb.exe?getdoc+uscview+t33t36+991+2++(debunk%20And%20%20%20And%20judicial%20And%20review)
(snip)
(c) Additional evidence

In any judicial proceeding brought under subsection (b) of this

section in which review is sought of a determination under this

chapter required to be made on the record after notice and

opportunity for hearing, if any party applies to the court for

leave to adduce additional evidence, and shows to the satisfaction

of the court that such additional evidence is material and that

there were reasonable grounds for the failure to adduce such

evidence in the proceeding before the Administrator, the court may

order such additional evidence (and evidence in rebuttal thereof)

to be taken before the Administrator, in such manner and upon such

terms and conditions as the court may deem proper. The

Administrator may modify his findings as to the facts, or make new

findings, by reason of the additional evidence so taken and he

shall file such modified or new findings, and his recommendation,

if any, for the modification or setting aside of his original

determination, with the return of such additional evidence.

-SOURCE-

(June 30, 1948, ch. 758, title V, Sec. 509, as added Pub. L.

92-500, Sec. 2, Oct. 18, 1972, 86 Stat. 891; amended Pub. L.

93-207, Sec. 1(6), Dec. 28, 1973, 87 Stat. 906; Pub. L. 100-4,

title III, Sec. 308(b), title IV, Sec. 406(d)(3), title V, Sec.

505(a), (b), Feb. 4, 1987, 101 Stat. 39, 73, 75; Pub. L. 100-236,

Sec. 2, Jan. 8, 1988, 101 Stat. 1732.)

-MISC1-
(snip)

[AP]

28. Send emails encouraging the Chronicle to challenge the order

the same way the papers in Detroit and Ann Arbor challenged the orders closing the immigration proceedings for one of those innocent people rounded up in the terrorist sweep.

[Nottingham]

29. One of the Biggest Scandals in America! and Secret Trial!

America is in such corruption! :bounce:

[catmom]

30. That figures

The BFEE must be protected from embarrassment and humiliation. So we get secret hearings and the public remains ignorant of the corruption. :puke::puke:

[0007]

31. Could this be a set up?

Why am I suspicious of this play? Could it be that this reeks of a James A. Baker III hand?

This is somethin' like the fox running through the hen house to keep the rooster from crowing.