It looks like Justice David Medina just can't stay out of legal trouble. It was bad enough that he was indicted by a grand jury last week for tampering with evidence. He intefered with the investigation of arson (the burning of his home by his wife).Medina was lucky that time. The indictment was in Harris County, and Houston has a Republican District Attorney who isn't bothered with trivial things like ethics. The DA quickly moved to protect his fellow Republican and had the charge dismissed. But his ethically-challenged Republican buddies may not be able to get Medina out of his new mess.
It seems that Justice Medina has been commuting from Houston to Austin several times a week for his job on the Texas Supreme Court. That may be silly, but it's not criminal. The criminal part is that he's been reimbursing himself for the commuting from his campaign donations. These reimbursements totaled $17,000 in 2005, $26,400 in 2006 and $13,500 in 2007.
You'd think a judge, especially a Texas Supreme Court Justice, would know that the Texas Ethics Commission declared in 1993 that this was a violation of campaign law. But in the last few years, Republicans haven't paid much attention to the law. It looks like Justice Medina is one of those Republicans.
He may have a little more trouble getting out of this one. This kind of violation falls in the juristiction of the Travis County District Attorney, who is neither a Republican nor ethically-challenged.
It might be time for Justice Medina to "pay the piper".
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