BREAKING NEWS: A New First Assistant

There is breaking news coming out of the Harris County District Attorney's Office as former prosecutor Bill Hawkins is being sworn in to replace Jim Leitner as First Assistant.

I am told that he is being brought in to help ease the transition from the outgoing Lykos Administration to whoever wins the District Attorney's race in November.

It is a smart move.  Bill knows the ins and outs of the Office and is a good leader.

I would write more on this, but I'm late for court!

Of Raining, Pouring and Writer's Block

I've gotten a bunch of complaints lately that I haven't posted on anything in a while, either on this blog or the Chronicle blog.

Either there just hadn't been much happening of interest lately or I've just been experiencing a bout of writer's block.  Also, I've been very busy with my Little Man's summer activities and my Favorite Editor from New York being in town for an extended visit.

And then last week, several different things happened that were all worthy of writing a blog post (or two or three) on . . .

. . . and I'm at a place for the weekend that has no Internet connection.

Ah the irony.

One of the major things that happened last week was the stunning revelation by former Houston Police Department technical advisor Amanda Culbertson that HPD's mobile "BATmobiles" (used for the on-site testing of a DWI suspect's breath) had some major glitches in their reliability.  It was covered at length by Paul Kennedy with his post here.  (NOTE:  If you aren't reading Kennedy's blog, you should be.  Yes, you'll probably disagree with a lot of it, and he does wear that bola instead of a tie, but he is worth reading.)

Paul focuses in on the ramifications for HPD, but what I find interesting is the ramifications for the D.A.'s Office.  There are a ton of cases that Culbertson's testimony effects and it will be very interesting to see what the Office does with them.

I'm also quite skeptical of the idea that the D.A.'s Office was unaware of Ms. Culbertson's claims that the BATmobiles were faulty.  Why exactly did the prosecutors ask for a continuance on the case rather than dismiss it?  Look for there to be A LOT more to come from this revelation and the key question you'll need to be asking is "Who knew what?  And when?"

In addition to the BATmobile revelations, last week long-term prosecutor Bill Hawkins turned in his letter of resignation to the Lykos Administration.  I say that he turned his resignation into the Lykos Administration, because Bill Hawkins would have never resigned from a District Attorney's Office.  There is a distinction between the two.

Bill was the lead prosecutor on the upcoming retrial of cop killer Carl Buntion, which was set for trial in the next month or so.  His resignation is surprising in its timing, but there were early warnings that Bill was not going to mesh well with the Lykos Administration.

Integrity often causes conflict with those who have none.

Because Bill has integrity, he is not talking about his departure at the moment, but if I had to guess, I would bet it had something to do with the idiotic idea to have him supervised by a prosecutor junior to him as I detailed in this post.  Especially if that junior prosecutor is a darling of the Lykos Administration when Bill certainly was not.

I will be writing a much better post regarding my friend and mentor, Bill Hawkins when he has finished his last day at the Office.

In other news, I did finally get off my butt and write a new blog on the Chronicle.  You can check it out by clicking here.

And finally, on a sad note, my friend and former trial adversary, John Denninger, passed away yesterday after a battle with cancer.

But, I will be writing a separate post on him momentarily.

Comes A Prosecutor

I'm proud of my service at the District Attorney's Office.

I make no apologies for that.

What has transpired in that Office over the past 90 days has been absolutely devastating to that Office in ways that not even the biggest Pat Lykos detractor (um, that would be me) could have imagined. Her actions since last Thursday have gone far beyond even the worst case scenarios that I could have imagined.

As a prosecutor, I was always used to being insulted by Defendants, Defense Attorneys, and often the Media. Sometimes making the right decision meant making unpopular decisions and that came to as part of the job.

What I never had to deal with as a prosecutor was my boss encouraging me to fail to do my job.

But under the Lykos Administration, that's exactly what prosecutors are having to do. After the absolutely disgusting and morally reprehensible actions by Lykos against prosecutors Mark Donnelly and Rifi Newaz on Thursday, there was a follow up by Lykos' Chief Peon, Jim Leitner. Leitner entered into a series of meeting with Special Crimes, Division Chiefs, and Chief Prosecutors, in which he reiterated the his moronic platform from his ill-fated campaign of more or less abandoning peremptory strikes.

For those of you who don't practice law, scenarios like the following could happen under the Lykos/Leitner in dealing with a juror during voir dire:

PROSECUTOR: So, Juror # 13, have you ever had any bad experiences with the police or the D.A.'s Office?
JUROR # 13: Absolutely. Two of my children were wrongfully arrested and convicted by a bunch of corrupt and lying police officers and prosecutors.
PROSECUTOR: I'm guessing then by your answer that you could not be fair to the State.
JUROR # 13: Heh heh heh. Nah, I can be fair. You bet. Heh heh heh.

Under the Lykos/Leitner Rules, that juror is going to be on the jury. At least, they will be if they are a member of a protected class.

That's absolutely ridiculous.

Call me old fashioned, by I kind of like voting for a District Attorney who is actually going to be a prosecutor--not a defense attorney who is going to spend more time pandering to voters than actually doing the job that they took an OATH to do. That is the message that Pat and Jim sent out to their people with what they did to Rifi and Mark.

And prior to today, I thought that this new found attitude had all of the prosecutors beaten down.

So, it was with a great deal of relief and admiration when I saw my friend, Division Chief Bill Hawkins walk into the court where I was working today. A jury trial in the near future was being discussed and a prosecutor under Bill's supervision asked if the new Leitner rules would be those that governed jury selection.

Bill's response was something to the effect of: "In this Division, we're going to continue to follow the Law."

I know very well that Bill has had his controversial moments in his career as a prosecutor, and Lord knows I've disagreed with him on plenty of occasions.

But Bill Hawkins is a Man with a Code of Honor that he follows, no matter what his detractors may say about him. To paraphrase Davy Crockett (at least the one played by Fess Parker), he decides what is right and then he "goes ahead".

Incidentally, Hawkins was also one of the people that stood up to Leitner in defense of Mark and Rifi during one of Jim's special meetings.

Bill Hawkins is a leader in that Office. More importantly, he's a prosecutor.

Which are two things that most decidedly do not describe Lykos and Leitner.

I'm hoping that more and more prosecutors will continue to follow Hawkins' lead -- Know what is right, and then go ahead. Stop worrying about getting fired or punished by Lykos if you follow the law. Even that horribly misguided Politico and her Lap Dog must know that if she were to retaliate against her prosecutors for violating the law by either firing, demoting, or transferring them that they could turn around with a lovely whistle-blower's lawsuit.

It's time for prosecutors to be able to get back to doing their job without fear of retaliation from their boss, who is a politician, and actually much more of a defense attorney than a prosecutor.

If you need an example of how a prosecutor is supposed to act, just go look to Bill Hawkins right now.