It seems the mainstream media and wannabe legal analysts in this state are scoffing at Charlie White's reluctance to give testimony in the Recount Commission proceedings scheduled to take place this Tuesday. Both Marion Co. Circuit Court Judge Louis Rosenberg and the Indiana Supreme Court have refused White's attorney's motion to stay the Recount Commission proceedings until the criminal case pending against him has been concluded. Their motion rests on the not inconsequential constitutional right all American citizens have under the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination. Given the choice, White really has no choice but to invoke this Fifth Amendment right as long as the outrageous criminal charges brought against him by an out-of-control special prosecutor are permitted to go forward.
You can study the records of criminal cases in Indiana and you will never find anyone who has been charged with a felony voter fraud charge based on what the special prosecutor has accused him of doing. White was a legally registered voter entitled to vote in elections conducted in Hamilton County. Nobody has ever been charged with a felony because they voted in a one precinct versus another precinct within the same jurisdiction where there was absolutely no intent to cast a vote to alter the outcome of a race that was on the ballot. In every election conducted every year in this state, people vote in precincts in which they are not currently residing because of a failure to correctly update registered voting addresses to accurately reflect where they are presently living. Nobody in the history of the state of Indiana has every been charged with a felony for that omission.
You can study the criminal records of this state and you will never find a case where where a person has been charged with committing a felony based upon the address they provided when filling out a marriage application. And you will also never find a case where a person has been charged with felony mortgage fraud charges based on the allegation the special prosecutor has made against White, particularly in the absence of any proof that the home he purchased was to be used as anything but a principal residence.White owned no other residence at the time, and had not rented the home to another person indicating it was purchased for use as rental property. To say the special prosecutor's felony charges against White is an outrageous exercise of prosecutorial discretion is an understatement to say the very least. In a federal proceeding, White would have likely been granted a stay based on federal court decisions in this area. It is disturbing that that our own state courts are refusing to stay the civil proceeding against White until after the criminal case has been concluded, particularly since it will effectively determine whether White can continue serving in the office to which he has been elected.
The fact of the matter is that criminal defendants all the time request a stay of civil proceedings against them where criminal charges are threatened or pending against them. This is the general rule in a case like White's where the pending criminal charges against him overlap substantially with the allegations contained in the eligibility complaint against him and, more importantly, where the defendant in the civil proceeding has already been indicted in the criminal case. In this case, the civil case in being allowed to proceed on highly specious grounds. It is disturbing that the civil proceeding is allowed to continue and White expected to testify given the criminal charges already brought against him essentially are the same as those he faces in the Recount Commission proceeding.
It is an outrage that this proceeding has even been allowed to go forward. The Recount Commission properly dismissed the action last year, notwithstanding Judge Rosenberg's ruling to the contrary. There is no case in Indiana history declaring a person registered to vote in Indiana ineligible to hold the office to which he was elected based on whether he or she cast a vote in the correct precinct, particularly where the issue had no relevance to whether the person resided in the jurisdiction of the office to which he was seeking. Nobody contests the fact that Charlie White resided at all times in Indiana. The Indiana Constitution does not even require a person to be a resident of the state of Indiana to serve as Secretary of State, let alone require he be a registered voter in the state. Accepting the statutory requirement he has to be a registered voter, it is uncontested that White was and is a registered voter of this state. The only question is whether the county voting records reflected the address at which he should have been registered to vote at the time he sought his party's nomination at the state convention. You can jump up and down and scream all you want, but that's the only issue involved here.
Most importantly, however, is the fact that the Democratic Party deliberately waited until after the election was over and their candidate was trounced at the polls before filing a contest against his eligibility. In all cases on point, Indiana courts have determined that the failure to raise an issue of eligibility timely effectively waives the right to assert the challenge, particularly since whatever ineligibility raised in their complaint ceased to exist by the time voters went to the polls in November. I find it very interesting how people who profess to be such defenders of the Constitution and the individual rights of citizens have so little regard for both in the case of Charlie White. There absolutely was no election fraud that took place in last year's election that resulted in the election of Charlie White. Whether you like him or not, election fraud never occurred. He was duly elected by the voters of this state, and that's all that should count.
UPDATE: Judge Louis Rosenberg ruled this morning that anything White testifies to at the Recount Commission hearing scheduled for tomorrow may be used against him in his criminal trial in denying a request by White's attorney for use immunity. If White wants to avail himself of the rights all American citizens have under the Fifth Amendment, he has no choice but to raise the Fifth Amendment tomorrow and refuse to answer questions asked of him. The people who claim to be big supporters of civil liberties will all exoriate him to no end, but he has no other choice if his attorney is advising him properly.
