Texas justice?: how should deal cut by special prosecutors to end felony charges against Texas AG be described?

I have not followed closely any of the legal cases and dramas surrounding Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, but the news of a deal to end long-running state criminal charges against him caught my eye in part because I am not quite sure how to describe it.  As detailed in this local article, headlined “Ken Paxton agrees to community service, paying restitution to avoid trial in securities fraud case,” the resolution is not a plea deal because AG Paxton is not pleading guilty to anything.  And yet, AG Paxton is agreeing to serve a kind of sentence functionally and to being under the yoke of prosecutors for an extended period:

Prosecutors on Tuesday agreed to drop the securities fraud charges facing Attorney General Ken Paxton if he performs 100 hours of community service and fulfills other conditions of a pretrial agreement, bringing an abrupt end to the nearly nine-year-old felony case that has loomed over the embattled Republican since his early days in office.

The deal, which landed three weeks before Paxton is set to face trial, also requires him to take 15 hours of legal ethics courses and pay restitution to those he is accused of defrauding more than a decade ago when he allegedly solicited investors in a McKinney technology company without disclosing that the firm was paying him to promote its stock. The amount of restitution totals about $271,000, prosecutor Brian Wice said.

Paxton, who will not have to enter a plea under the terms of the agreement, faced the prospect of decades in prison if he had been convicted of fraud. His status as a felon, based in part on an opinion he issued himself, would have likely barred him from running for office in the future. Paxton attorney Dan Cogdell said the prosecutors “approached us” and Paxton was “happy to agree to the terms of the dismissal.”

“But let me be clear, at no time was he going to enter any plea bargain agreement or admit to conduct that simply did not occur,” Cogdell said in a statement. “There is no admission of any wrongdoing on Ken’s part in the agreement because there was no wrongdoing on his part.”

The deal is the second major win for Paxton in roughly the last six months, after the Republican-controlled Texas Senate acquitted him last fall of 16 impeachment charges centered on allegations that he accepted bribes and abused the authority of his office to help a wealthy friend and campaign donor….

Two of the charges — first-degree felonies — stemmed from allegations that Paxton persuaded investors, including a then-GOP state lawmaker, to buy at least $100,000 worth of stock in a tech startup, Servergy, without disclosing that he would be compensated for it. Paxton will have 18 months, the length of the pretrial deal period, to pay restitution to the former lawmaker, Byron Cook, and the estate of Joel Hochberg, a Florida businessman who died last year. Wice said he is “not necessarily opposed” to dropping the charges before the 18 months are up if Paxton makes the payments sooner. He said Paxton cannot use campaign funds to pay restitution….

Wice said he had been “besieged by a torrent of phone calls” from people who have “expressed their monumental displeasure with the fact that these cases are being resolved with a pretrial intervention.” Touting the restitution Paxton now owes to his alleged victims, Wice said it was more important to secure justice for them than to pursue prison time for Paxton, which he said should only be a priority if the defendant poses a threat to public safety….

Paxton will perform community service in Collin County, where he resides, with an “entity or organization” agreed upon by both sides, Wice said — likely a “food pantry or soup kitchen.” He will also be required to check in with prosecutors every 60 days to ensure he is fulfilling the terms of the deal. The case could still resume and head to trial if Paxton fails to comply.

I think it would be fair to label this resolution a deferred prosecution agreement or maybe a non-prosecution agreement, though it appears the special prosecutor calls this a “pretrial intervention.”  Whatever the right label, I wonder if this arrangement is unusual in Texas criminal justice arenas.  I also wonder whether folks view this resolution as true Texas justice or a kind of special Texas justice.