So, with all the other stuff, this kinda got burried in the news.
Is there a chance he gets out earlier than 3 years with good behavior?
It's such a short sentence given what he faced......I doubt it, but nothing surprises me.
I mean... is that an option for the crime he committed? (Sorry... I really don't know much about the sentencing side of legal proceedings).
The DA offered a plea deal for a misdemeanor charge back in 2005, which DeLay rejected. In 2010, they demanded a 10-year sentence, because that would have meant that DeLay could not have got an appeal bond, while the case is being appealed.
I think that the 3-year sentence is worth 9 months with good behavior. Essentially, the judge gave the minimum sentence, short of probation.
The primary charge against DeLay was dismissed in 2005. DeLay was convicted of money-laundering, and conspiracy to commit money-laundering. The idea of a money-laundering charge is that one converts the money received from commission of a crime, into a legal asset (say a car dealer takes $50,000 in cash from a drug dealer, and sells him a $30,000 car). The drug dealer has legal title to the car. The car dealer only reports $30,000 for the sale and pockets the other $20,000. But in the case of DeLay, the underlying criminal charges were dismissed. Observers were convinced that DeLay would be found not guilty, when the jury asked whether it matter if there was no evidence of an underlying crime from which the proceeds could be laundered.
When DeLay was originally indicted, then-DA Ronnie Earle realized that he had messed up the indictment. He went to another grand jury, which refused to indict. Then on the last day that he could get an indictment, he went to a new grand jury and convinced them to indict. He claimed that there was new evidence discovered over the weekend,
There was another case involving associates of DeLay where a judge ruled that the use of a check does not constitute money laundering. While that was being appealed by the DA, they refused to go ahead with DeLay's trial - it was the Travis County DA's office that has stalled on this case. Eventually, an appeals court overturned the lower court ruling - and said that they should not have made a decision on the check issue, until after a convention. That is, you have to wait for a conviction before you decide whether the crime was actually a crime. So if DeLay had been given a longer sentence, he would have served his sentence and been released before the courts had ever finished determining whether the alleged action was actually a crime.
