A politically charged criminal contempt proceeding continues against a defense attorney for questioning the judge's integrity in a DWI trial - and an arrest warrant is issued. Time to take attorney regulation, and criminal contempt powers, from the hands of the judiciary

In yet another case proving that regulation of the legal profession should be taken out of the hands of the judiciary, an attorney in Texas has been charged with criminal contempt for telling the jury that he is going to prove how hard it is to get a fair trial in court before Judge Nancy Hohengarten in Travis County, Texas.

This judge.

The targeted attorney is also a political opponent, running on a Green Party ticket for the Senate and previously running for a Criminal Appeals court seat.

The court actually issued an arrest warrant against the attorney because he did not appear at his own criminal trial because he was sick (and had documents from a doctor about it).

But, of course, judges nowadays are such good diagnosticians - without medical licenses of course (which is illegal, but who cares), and the judge "did not buy the ploy" of a documented medical illness of a criminal defense attorney.

I bet that if a prosecutor was ill, only her word, no medical documentation, would be needed to postpone the trial.

This case is certainly a 1st amendment case and a case where judges should be prohibited from bringing criminal charges against attorneys questioning their own impartiality.

Such tactics not only are obviously used for political ends, but undermine independence of representation in criminal (and civil) cases.