One puzzling aspect of Tom DeLay's indictment is that DeLay agreed to waive the statute of limitations applicable to the alleged offense. For the non-lawyers out there in VC Land, a "statute of limitations" in criminal law is a law that gives the government a specific window of time in which to bring a criminal charge. The Texas statute gave the government three years after the crime was committed to bring charges. By waiving the statute, DeLay consented to being charged outside that window of time.

  The question is, why would DeLay waive the statute of limitations? (The indictment doesn't make this clear, but I assume he waived the statute of limitations before it ran out, not after.) Defense attorney Norm Pattis suggests that there may have been a deal between DeLay and the prosecutor, and that DeLay is planning on pleading guilty at some point. It seems more likely to me that DeLay knew the indictment was coming one way or another, and he figured that he was better off politically if he could put off the indictment for as long as possible. But this is just speculation on my part, of course. Do any VC readers with experience in criminal law have additional insights to share about this?