167th CRIMINAL DISTRICT JUDGE
1. Since none of you are incumbents to the position, please identify three reasons why you are the best qualified for the position and what changes you foresee being necessary for effective administration of justice while serving as one of our district judges.
a. 1) I am the only candidate both Board Certified in Criminal Law and Experienced as a
Prosecutor and Criminal Defense Attorney representing solely indigent accused felons. I have
been Chief Prosecutor of the Child Abuse Division, Major Narcotics Prosecutor, Chief Prosecutor in the 147th District Court and, since 1995, Chief Prosecutor in the Appellate Division. While Appellate Director I have tried the Dan de la Garza insurance fraud case in 1995, the first Gang Injunction Lawsuit filed in the State of Texas in 1998, the Roger Scaggs murder case, was admitted to the Bar of the US Supreme Court to handle Hill v. Texas, and was involved in the Tom DeLay investigation, prosecution and appeal for seven years. I was the DA’s first Community Prosecutor as I served on the South Congress Coalition, which re-vitalized South Congress Avenue beginning in the mid- 1990s. I have been a Chief Prosecuting attorney for 22 of my 26 total years as an Assistant DA in Travis Count.
a. 2) My career as a prosecuting attorney has been defined by my quest for justice and the high level of respect exhibited toward me by prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys, district judges, and law enforcement throughout my career. This is perhaps best exemplified by the fact that, both under Ronnie Earle and now Rosemary Lehmberg, I was chosen to direct the re-investigations of the alleged “Barton Creek Rapist” from 1983, and the Pizza Hut murder of 1988. I then personally handled the exoneration hearings of the three defendants, and the capital murder indictment and trial of the real killer in the Pizza Hut murder. These were extremely sensitive investigations and proceedings, and my handling of these led to outcomes trusted by the above four components of the criminal justice system. I then directed the internal DNA review of over 450 sexual assault and murder cases dating to the late 1970s. I helped design and now supervise the DA’s DNA Conviction Integrity Program, which assists the Innocence Project at the UT School of Law in its review of those same 450 cases and new ones as they arise after advancements in DNA technology.
a. 3) I am the only candidate who has had, for 30 years, extensive community involvement with out most vulnerable population groups: the mentally ill (ASH, Meridell Treatment Center, Mental Health Clinic in law school); those with no health insurance (Peoples’ Community Clinic volunteer and Board of Directors); the homeless (Interfaith Hospitality Network); re-entry program for ex-convicts (St. Dismas House, Board of Directors); introducing legal principles and ethics to middle and high school students (Law Related Education in Schools, Austin Bar ASSN); mentorship with highly at-risk kids (Seedling Foundation).
The vast majority of people (excluding jurors) who appear before and in Travis County District Courts come from these socially marginal population groups. I have been closely involved with these groups even as I have spent most of my career as a prosecuting attorney. I have not been solely concerned with legal justice because I have been aware for over 45 years that legal justice in the absence of sound social justice, in spite of our best efforts, will continue to elude us as a community.
Our community has already passed the point in time at which an awareness or cursory intellectual knowledge of our disenfranchised populations will qualify a person to step into the shoes, chambers, or bench of a sitting district court judge. A future district court judge in this day must have the legal knowledge/ experience and personal life experiences that, when combined with a sense of justice and judgement finely honed from a firm foundation built on insight, integrity and fairness, will lead to the just resolution of the complex legal, moral and ethical issues that are presented in these courtrooms every day. The ability and willingness of a person to be a candidate should never be undertaken without a full and realistic awareness of the implications and consequences of the responsibilities of a district judge.
b. 1) From February 24, 2011, the day I made the unexpected announcement of my candidacy after consulting with five friends and family members, I have had two primary reforms I will implement in our Travis County Criminal Justice System. First, as I have been advocating for several years, when I become District Judge the Travis County Juvenile Court and Probation Department will support our existing mentoring programs (several good ones already in place) and the one for elementary school students currently being developed by AISD, in a coordinated effort to bring these mentoring programs to at-risk children before they ever become involved with Juvenile Court. It is beyond question that once a child has a referral to juvenile court the chances of that child ever graduating from high school decrease dramatically. This will be the most effective crime prevention effort ever introduced into the Travis County Criminal and Juvenile Justice Systems. It really does take a community of responsible adults from all walks of life to raise our at-risk kids. All elected District Court judges in Travis County sit on the statutorily created Travis County Juvenile Court Board.
b. 2) Second, my longstanding proposal that our district and county court judges unite to form a Mental Health Board is as significant as my proposal to get Juvenile Court/Probation Department involved with mentoring programs. Once this is done then the judges may petition the Travis County Commissioners Court to formally establish a Travis County Mental Health Board that includes all of the Travis County Bench. The potential strength of such a Board is obvious.
The Mental Health Board will make recommendations to Commissioners Court regarding funding of various components of the Travis County Integral Care Department (formerly Travis County MHMR). Having grown up on the grounds of Rusk State Hospital where my father was Chaplain, from an early age I have carried a heart-felt appreciation of and for people with mental illnesses. In the 4th and 5th grades I and the other “hospital kids” brought birthday parties through the Volunteer Services Department to the patients on the wards at the hospital. Patients from the hospital painted and re-painted our home, inside and out, and maintained our yards throughout my childhood. I have vivid recollections of these individuals. The summer after my junior year in high school I had the opportunity to work 20 hours/week in the Maximum Security Unit at Rusk State Hospital. In the last part of my undergrad days at UT I worked at ASH, and before law school worked at “The Ranch” with young adolescent boys at Meridell Achievement Center in Liberty Hill. In UT law school’s Mental Health Clinic I represented people committed against their will during the days leading up to the initial commitment hearing at ASH, and once during this commitment hearing. I have an informed, emotional, awareness of our community’s and especially our local criminal justice system’s ongoing treatment of our mentally ill population. Not good, by the way.
Because the current legislature has largely abandoned people with mental illness, I will work for more county funding in two areas. First, through establishing a Forensic Mental Health Team, similar to but smaller than Bexar County’s, those committed through our civil courts may be monitored for maintained compliance with medication orders. People who stop taking their medications obtained at out-patient centers will be contacted by a Team social worker so that arrangements may be made for medication compliance. This simple action will have far-reaching positive effects on families with a loved one taking medication, and will, I believe, lead to a significant decline in such individuals’ entry into our homeless population that often leads to lengthy incarceration in our county jail; this because treatment beds are unavailable. Second, I want to address the severe shortage in treatment beds by encouraging more county funding to firm-up our local Integral Care out-patient facilities’ ability to address the needs of clients more effectively.
2. Please list all Democratic clubs that you are currently a member; the length of time you have been a member of each club; and please estimate your cumulative donations to these local clubs, as well as the Travis County Democratic Party and State Democratic Party.
I have been a member of SAD, CAP Dems, BAD, WAD, Circle C Dems, NxNW Dems, and CTDF beginning in the months soon after I entered this race. I next joined CAAAD, and then last summer joined Austin Tejano Dems. I joined CADW when I understood that men could join. I am a sustaining member of SAD, Circle C Dems, and contributor to TCDP. I was a member of SAD in the early to mid-1990s until my membership lapsed.
I estimate that my cumulative donations and sponsorships total $2000 or more.
3. Will you support all Democratic candidates in the November election, even if you are not chosen in the primary? Why or why not?
The answer is an emphatic “yes.” And not only for this judicial race. The course of my life has been a living enactment of core Democratic Party principles. I cannot remember a single point in time since the 1960s in which the living enactment of Democratic Party principles has been as important as it is now.