I have not seen any professors out there writing that the indictment is strong. The closest is Michael Dorf, who seems ambivalent. The comments by Hashim after the Dorf post point out the problems with treating the veto or the veto threat as a criminal violation.

Now a few readers have pointed me to “Why Rick Perry Will Be Convicted” by James Moore at HuffPo.

It does not seem very convincing to me, not on the question of whether a jury might convict, but on the question of whether the courts will let these charges go to a jury or overturn any jury convictions.

Moore’s main point appears to be that Perry may have had a political motivation—to stop the investigation of an ally–when he threatened to veto and vetoed funding for the Travis County D.A.’s office. That’s not news and had been reported before. Even assuming that is true, it does not look like that conduct fits under Count 1 of the indictment (for reasons Eugene has given). As for count 2, it looks like (1) the threatening of a veto may be protected conduct; (2) it may not be covered by the statute; and (3) prosecution for a veto threat under the statute may violate the First Amendment.