Texas appeals court overrules local judge in Ken Paxton prosecutor pay dispute

HOUSTON (CN) — The paycheck that special prosecutors receive for their work in the Ken Paxton securities fraud case has once again been capped at $2,000, the latest reversal in a nine-year-long dispute over prosecutor pay.

The pay fight is just one part of a nearly decade-long legal case against Texas' hard-right attorney general Ken Paxton. It's a scandal that's plagued Paxton since he first entered office.

The main case against the attorney general largely wrapped up in March after Paxton agreed to pay $271,000 in restitution and perform community service in exchange for not entering a plea or facing a jury trial. But the prosecutor pay dispute — one of many factors that kept the securities case in limbo for nine years — remains ongoing.

Harris County District Court Judge Andrea Beall had presided over the final stages of the Paxton case, including the March pretrial agreement. Last October, Beall ruled in the prosecutors’ favor, agreeing to pay rates of $300 an hour and an invoice for $199,000. This February, she also issued another revised order related to pay.

But in what is now the latest ruling on the matter, a three-judge panel for the Texas First Court of Appeals vacated both orders on Thursday, ruling that Beall overstepped her authority with the two orders. They directed Beall to issue a new pay order in compliance with a fee schedule previously established in Collin County, where Paxton lives and where the case began.

The legal fight over prosecutor pay is almost as complex as the securities fraud case itself. Some observers have viewed it as a sign that Texas' top cop and his allies are manipulating the court system to his benefit.

After Paxton was indicted in Collin County in 2015, the local DA asked to recuse himself, citing his "business and personal relationship with Ken Paxton." Officials approved that request, appointing attorneys Brian Wice and Kent Schaffer as special prosecutors.

Almost immediately, Wice and Schaffer objected to the county’s fee schedule, which limited pay for their pretrial work to $1,000 for pretrial preparation and $500 for each half-day of trial. As the legal saga dragged on for months and then years, that pay rate effectively meant that Wice and Schaffer would be working for free.

Shortly after the prosecutors launched their dispute, Collin County’s administrative judge agreed to deviate from the fee schedule and instead pay them $300 an hour. The prosecutors then provided two invoices, one for $242,000 and one for $199,000.

In 2017, both the Texas Fifth Court of Appeals and the Collin County Commissioners Court rejected the second of the two invoices the prosecutors submitted. Still, both courts denied objections to the first invoice from a local real estate developer and Paxton supporter, who argued his taxes shouldn't pay for the special prosecutors. Then, in November 2018, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overrode the local judge’s agreement entirely, ruling that prosecutor pay should remain within the fixed maximum rate of the county’s fee schedule.

Since then, multiple courts have gone back and forth on which payment plan they would allow and exactly how much the prosecutors would get paid.

As of Thursday, that original $2,000 limit is once again under effect.

In the ruling, Justice Julie Countiss wrote that “because the [Texas Code of Criminal Procedure] gives local judges the sole discretionary authority to collectively determine what constitutes a reasonable fee and adopt a fee schedule for the individual local judges to follow, the trial court did not have the authority to award a fee that exceeded the maximum fee set by the Collin County fee schedule.”

Brian Wice did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Courthouse News. On Thursday, he told told the Houston Chronicle that he intends to appeal this latest decision.

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