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Andre Jones And James Henry Are Ham Sandwiches

Put another way, the two have been indicted by a Travis County Grand Jury. If the headline confuses you, it's a nod to a now-immortalzied quote by Sol Wachtler, former chief judge of New York's court of appeals, who said prosecutors have so much sway over grand juries they could get them to "indict a ham sandwich."

In short: we don't know anything today that we didn't know before today. Travis County prosecutors have what they believe is evidence against these young men. Given the nature of grand jury proceedings, securing the indictment was, for all intents and purposes, a formality.

In the case of Henry, the government's evidence sounds overwhelming. With Andre Jones, there reportedly exists quite a bit of contention. In both cases, however, the indictment is not a stamp of guilt. It merely means that there's some evidential basis for the case to proceed.

I bring this up not to be preachy, but only to remind folks that we're a long way from a guilty verdict here. Though neither belongs on the team while these charges are pending, neither deserve our moral condemnation yet, either. I haven't seen any of that here, but elsewhere the pitchfork crowd is already crossing the line. Let's just sit tight here and let things play out.

--PB--