Do you think it is possible that a judge could dismiss SOME of the charges? Is it at the judge’s discretion to do that?

Dan,
Thanks for posting. It will be tonights reading.

Ken

[...] have all indictment charges against him dismissed.  You can view the motion here.  A hat tip to Dan Turkette of Fort Wayne News. Posted in Uncategorized [...]

Dan, your quicklinks are missing pages 17-16.

Dan notes: Sorry, fixed.

I’m reading this document and thinking about Kevin Knuth’s claim that his attorney’s are admitting that Kelty lied.

Now… I’m probably nowhere near as smart as Kevin Knuth, but the point that the attorney was making is that the questioning made by the grand jury was fundamentally flawed. They asked the wrong types of questions that were fundamentally flawed and then surmised that Kelty committed perjury.

“As the supreme court held, ‘the burden is on the questioner to pin the witness down to the specific object of the questioner’s inquiry… precise questioning is imperative as a predicate for the offense of perjury. To that end the State has failed on count II. The state simply had to ask Kelty is “your story” and “your testimony” on this matter true? It never did.”

Kevin is twisting this document around to his own liking.

I am finding the attorney’s appeal for dismissal very compelling~ I would not be surprised if these charges ARE dismissed.

Anon- No way, they will NOT be dismissed. And unless I am missing it, I do not see any complaint about the SECOND charge of perjury.

maybe I missed it…i will look again.

Hmmm…..nope, cannot find it.

Perhaps that is why the DEFENSE has asked for the testimony to be SEALED.

I mean, why would they want you to read the facts?

Look again. It’s there. The points Kelty’s attorneys were making were that the STATE’s line of questioning was vague and ambiguous to the point that they are unable to “pin” Matt down for perjury charges.

The arguments are compelling, the laws are vague (undefined), the perjury claims are vague as well, the questions were weak and not pointed enough to support a specific intent crime of perjury, and the charges should be dismissed. Yes way Kevin. They will be dismissed–if not at this Court, at the Court of Appeals and if not there, at the Indiana Supreme Court—they will be dismissed, eventually.

Maybe I’m seeing things that are not there? Starting at the bottom of page 30, “4. the facts alleged in counts I and II do not amount to perjury.” Count II is duscussed on page 31 and Count I is discussed starting in paragraph 2 on page 32 and continues to page 33.

Am I wrong? Am I seeing things that are not there in the document?

Are these not the two counts of perjury the grand jury is assuming?

Ok. I’m changing my name from anonymous. Except I am not “anonymous” from the post at 5:14pm or from other posts found in this blog.

Kevin K.

I think there is a far better reason to seal the part dealing with the perjury then not letting the public see. One can rest assured some people will be called to testify that never went before the Grand Jury. They DO NOT want them to testify on things basied on what others may have said to the Grand Jury.

I, for one, do not think the picture many of us think we see is complete. Remember Kelty’s job is to defend him and maybe not some others. No, it is not letting someone else take the fall for Kelty. Time will tell no matter what any of us say.

Thanks Dan T. for putting it up. Tip of the hat!

I believe, not based on any proof or things I’ve heard, that the defense probably wants the testimony “sealed” until after the election, or until this thing goest to court. If the testimony were open for the public, the dems, the papers, the news would be obsessed with it. People are still obsessed with the cake.

If I were Kelty’s lawyers, I certainly would ask the testimony to be sealed.

JQ- you bring a valid point up.

The TRUTH is WE DO NOT KNOW what the Grand Jury heard. We only know snippets.

Giving it a second read- may not finish tonight-

Section 1- page 10 under “indictment”

“..to surmise how only 3 weeks later concluded that Kelty violated the same laws, which the very board (referring the the Allen County Election Board) that is statuatorily charged with interpreting and enforcing…”

WRONG- 100% Wrong.

The election board cannot determine guilt- they can only submit the matter to a Proscuting Attorney as laid out in IC 3-6-5-31.

Kevin. I don’t understand your point. What do you mean that the election board cannot determin guilt?

Or not submit the matter to a Prosecuting Attorney. The assumption is if they don’t submit it to a Prosecuting Attorney that someone else can and that there is probable cause to support them. Bad assumption. Dan Sigler is going to have to make these arguments in front of the Court of Appeals. The arguments in Kelty’s brief are compelling. The law is unclear and just about anybody could have been indicted by Dan Sigler given the way he pursued this. Its spurious. Win or lose in the election–these charges will not see the light of a jury. They won’t. They will be dismissed. They are a load of crap and keeping in line with other historic loads of crap that have been unfairly loaded upon unsuspecting people by the “cultural elite” of this County. Excuse me while I spend another 48 hours studying these briefs and look for missing commas and spelling errors.

Page 78 of the 2007 Indiana Campaign Finance Manual:

“If the Commission or board determines that a felony or misdemeanor violation of the Campaign Finance Act “may” have occured, the violation must be reported to the appropriate prosecuting attorney… a prosecuting attorney is responsible for prosecuting criminal violations of the Act, and may file criminal charges follwing referral by a county election board.”

Sounds tome like the election board is indeed “charged with interpreting and enforcing”. They are enforcing their belief that a candidate violated campaign finance laws by referring the information and report to the prosecuting attorney. Hmmm~ That didn’t happen with Matt Kelty, did it.

I don’t see anything in this “motion to dismiss the charges” any reference to their job of “determining guilt”. That is not what is being implied in this paragraph.

Kelty is going to plea this out to a single felony and no jail time after he loses the election. That would be the smart thing to do…

I have a question for all you legal beagles. I read the motion in it’s entirety, and it looks to me to be a matter of when, not if the charges are going to be dismissed. Now, how long should it take for the Allen County Superior Court to come back with a ruling either way. Is there a possibility of a ruling coming out prior to the election? I would hate to have 20,000 or more people slapping themselves on the forehead saying, “darn, I would have voted for Kelty had I known about this earlier” while Tom Henry is being sworn in.

Ken

My bald headed damaged brain tells me the only way it can go to a PA is if they find fault. Otherwise everytime someone is not happy they run to the PA.

What stops the next person or persons from grabbing both Henry’s and Kelty’s reports and saying that someone gave money to John Jones to donate to each of them. I think our people down at state may have thought of that and required it to go through the local election board.

There appears to be no provision to appeal the ruling. But maybe some place else in the state code a person can appeal the ruling. But an appeal was not made.

I guess we can all toss out our beliefs and one of us will be right. That and one dollar will get you a double chesseburger at the new Mac out on South Anthony.

Jeff, Kelty cannot plea- he will lose his license to be an architect if he does. He has put himself in a bad spot- he should have just told the truth from the beginning.

Ken, Kelty could have settled this whole thing if he had requested the trial be held BEFORE the election.

Kevin. You are exhibiting ignorance of the law. He has been ACCUSED of lying to the grand jury. It does not mean that he did. I found writing on my wall the other day. I asked my 4 year old if he did it. “no… Mark did.” I was convinced he was lying to me. But that doesn’t mean that he did. Caught Mark red-handed 2hrs later.

silly analogy, I know, but if it was YOUR guy on the ropes, you’d be going around reminding people that “hey, they’re only accusing him of lying. The burden is on the prosecution to PROVE that he is lying. But until then, we have to presume his innocence.”

And you know it.

Kelty was very wise to request the trial stay until after the election… even if he didn’t, it could not have been so. Much to your disliking, people are actually paying attention to the ISSUES of the debates and what he is actually saying about his plan for Ft Wayne. I’m sure people who are undecided are moving closer toward being able to make a decision about one of the candidates, be it Henry or Kelty… but it’s based on the issues. If Kelty were in the middle of a trial right now, the issues would be drowned out and he wouldn’t stand a chance~ You know it. And that is why you would have liked the trial to proceed prior to the election.

Kevin,

Anyone who reads these documents can see, he did tell the truth.

No one controls the court docket but the court. It doesn’t matter who requests what.

From what I understand, the court transcripts where not made available to the Kelty team until about 3-weeks ago, just before the inital court date set in Oct. That must be why Kelty’s attorney’s requested a new court date in Dec, they hadn’t even received the court transcripts before the original date set in order to even begin a brief.

I know this may be a new concept for you Kevin, actually having the information before making an informed argument.

Kevin,

What Carol said. And if it were me going to court up against so many felony counts, I sure as hell would not to want to rush to trial. That would be foolish.

Ken

This one is not going to play out before the election. Dan Sigler has time to respond and he will take all of it (especially considering he is responding to 36 pages). Oral Arguments can be requested and set. All of this is not going to happen before November 6th. If the Court ruled in Kelty’s favor, Dan would not be able to appeal, I believe. If the Court ruled in Dan Sigler’s favor, Kelty would be able to appeal. This could make this play out even longer—say 1.5 years and there is appeal available to the Indiana Supreme Court as well. Most likely they would take it considering the nature of the issues. Possibly appeal to the US Supreme Court available given the Constitutional issues. This all could take about 5 years. Welcome to the Legal System, this case was tailor made for these appeals. No, I think that Kelty would let his appeals run before he even considers any other move.