It's a story I couldn't ignore. You have the longest-serving justice on the state's highest court, failed U.S. Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, Oprah's onetime attorney, allegations of campaign finance violations, and secret passageways to escape ALL in one story. (Read the AP version here.)

TX Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht testified for somewhere between one to two hours today, before the Texas Ethics Commission. These meetings are closed.

Hecht's accused by Texas Watch of breaking campaign finance law in accepting about $100,000 in in-kind legal help. The help came from former Oprah attorney Chip Babcock in 2006, after he was admonished for endorsing Miers for U.S. Supreme Court (judges are prohibited from endorsing a candidate for public office, Hecht won on appeal by arguing US SCOTX nominees aren't candidates for office).

Since we weren't going to get into the hearing, the complainants from Texas Watch, the AP's Jay Root and Harry Cabluck, our KVUE photog Dathan and myself hung out in the hallways outside the meeting. We thought we had the front and back doors covered so we could get a comment from Hecht when he was finished. Here's a shot of Jay and Harry covering one door:

Hecht was too stealth for us. He made an amazing escape! Around 5pm, after staking out the meeting for almost four hours, Ethics Commissioner Wilhelmina Delco came out and said, "Oh he's BEEN gone. He was gone a long time ago." She said the justice's testimony went "fine".

The Ethics Commission left the situation pending, which means a formal hearing is likely to follow. The formal hearing is public, according to Delco. That beats spending the afternoon sitting in the hallway. People kept walking by with their frozen yogurt with unlimited toppings...killing me...

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