We wish we could be satisfied with the guilty verdict in the Judge Eliseo Barnhart perjury trial in Kingsville but we have too many lingering doubts.

In the first place this trial should have been held in Willacy County where all the actors in this melodrama are well known by the people who would have been called out for jury duty.

We've been covering court cases in this county for more than 30 years and this marks the first time we have ever seen the alleged victim's attorneys ask for a change of venue.

It's always been the defendant who claims he can't get a fair trial locally.

Judge Barnhart's attorneys should have put up a vigorous argument against moving the trial out of this county --but they didn't. In fact, this matter should be raised again with the Appeals Court. There is something fundamentally wrong about moving a defendant away from the local people who know him best.

The plaintiff, Ms. Espinosa, filed assault charges against Barnhart during the election campaign of March, 2006 after the primary when Joe Alexandre and Barnhart were the only two candidates left standing in the county judge race.

Ms. Espinosa's aunt, wealthy political powerbroker Gloria Garcia, was supporting Alexandre in the county judge race. She is a former RISD school board member, former county judge candidate and her nephew served as mayor of Raymondville.

If Barnhart is indeed a sexual predator, why couldn't it have been someone else's niece that he assaulted? In any case, county attorney Juan Guerra, a former boyfriend of Ms. Garcia, took the case to two different grand juries and was unable to get an indictment of Judge Barnhart.

Barnhart beat Alexandre in the general election of November 2006, 1639 votes to 1084.

In Sept. 2007 Juan Guerra indicted Barnhart before another grand jury, this time for perjury. Guerra later recused himself after it was revealed that he at one time was romantically involved with the alleged victim's aunt.

Gustavo "Gus" Garza was appointed by State District Judge Migdalia Lopez to replace Guerra as the special prosecutor. Rather than prosecuting Barnhart, Garza led the grand jury to indict Ms. Garcia, her niece Andrea and her husband on extortion charges. The allegation was that they attempted to collect $7,000 from Barnhart in return for dropping the charge of sexual misconduct and that he drop out of the county judge race.

Presiding District Judge J. Manuel Banales threw the case out on a technicality. Garza had not taken a second oath of office as special prosecutor.

Much of the testimony that led to Barnhart's conviction came from lame duck county attorney Juan Guerra. Five witnesses for the defense said under oath that Juan Guerra does not have a reputation as a truthful person and the same witnesses said that Barnhart is a good and reputable man.

Juan Guerra has three felony cases pending, theft by a public servant, tampering with government records and attempted extortion of $10,000 from a bail bond company.

Leaving the final questions, "Did Barnhart lie to the grand jury and to the Texas Ranger who questioned him? We don't know the answer and probably never will.

Why didn't either grand jury indict the judge for the alleged sexual assault of Ms. Espinosa? The answer is clear. This case was one of those "he said, she said, deals," with no witnesses. It happened during a heated election contest and may have been the result of "Small Town Politics."

The county taxpayers who are paying for all this nonsense would have been much better off if Judge Banales had thrown out the charges against Barnhart at the same time he threw out the charges against Espinosa and her husband and aunt.

We'll bet you 2 to 1 that he drops the felony charges pending against Juan Guerra before the end of the year.