Republican consultant sentenced in NH phone jamming plot News
Republican consultant sentenced in NH phone jamming plot

[JURIST] Allen Raymond, former president of Republican consulting group GOP Marketplace, has received a five month sentence for his role in a plot to jam Democratic phone lines in New Hampshire during the 2002 election. Raymond pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy charges for plotting to jam phone lines that were meant to help voters get rides to polls. Chuck McGee, former director of the New Hampshire Republican Party, has also pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges [JURIST report]. Raymond, McGee, and the state GOP face a separate civil lawsuit filed by New Hampshire's Democratic Party. AP has more. The Concord Monitor has local coverage.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.