Supporting Other Candidates in a Kim Ogg World

Around 9 a.m. on December 24, 2008, Acting Harris County District Attorney Ken Magidson called me into his office and told me (for the second time in a month) that I was fired.

"I'm firing you for what you wrote on your blog.  It's too much."

He actually uttered those words.

Under the circumstances, I was caught off guard.  I was already planning on that day being my last at the Office and taking comp time for the remainder of 2008.  My contract wasn't going to be renewed so I was done effectively at midnight on December 31st, anyway.

But getting fired cost me some money.  There was no taking comp time if you didn't work there anymore.  I think all in all, Magidson's decision to pull the trigger as an early Christmas present cost me around $4,000.  Given the fact that I was going through a divorce and had child support looming, that was kind of a kick in the financial crotch.

Over the past eleven years since that fateful day, I've revisited the idea of whether or not I should have filed a lawsuit on many occasions.  I thought about it.  In the end I decided it really wasn't worth the effort.  My life was going through a reboot at the time, and adding the pet project of a lawsuit wasn't really all that appealing.

There is still a part of me that wishes I had, because when Magidson uttered those words, he was telling me that he was terminating my employment because of words I had written -- outside of work -- while expressing my opinion.   Sometimes I wish I had made a different decision at the time, just for the principle of defending my 1st Amendment rights. On occasion, I get really angry at 2008 Me for not doing that.

I bring this up now for a couple of reasons.

Campaign season is upon us, and as I have mentioned before, there are already six candidates lined up to challenge incumbent District Attorney Kim Ogg for her job.  Several of those candidates are immensely more popular with prosecutors at the Office than Ogg is.  Given their druthers, most prosecutors that I know (and I know a whole lot of prosecutors) would love nothing more than to support the candidate of their choice.

But unfortunately, they work for Kim Ogg.  And as Ogg demonstrated last month by firing Andrew Smith, she is not afraid to fire an employee for blatantly unethical (and quite possibly illegal) reasons.  Although the job of a prosecutor is to seek justice, in Ogg's paranoid world, the primary job is to be loyal to her.  As she demonstrated with Andrew, she ain't afraid to shank somebody for crossing her.

As a result of Kim's erratic and ruthless behavior, don't expect to see too many current prosecutors exercising their 1st Amendment right to support a candidate other than her Royal Oggness.  Ogg's level of paranoia and retaliatory nature make Pat Lykos seem like Mahatma Gandi.  And keep in mind that Lykos had some of her loyalists staking out fundraising events for Mike Anderson, and she also seriously jacked with Carvana Cloud to retaliate against Carvana's support of Clarence Bradford for D.A.

I would imagine that Kim Ogg will be far more retaliatory towards any employee that she finds supporting any other candidate.  I say this in advance because I hope that nobody thinks that a lack of current prosecutors showing up at fundraisers for other candidates means that they don't support those other candidates.  They just don't want to get fired for that support.

From the outside, looking in, it is easy for critics to say, "Well, if they hate working for Kim Ogg so much, why don't they just quit?"  I heard that line a lot in 2012 when Mike Anderson was running against Lykos.  I'm sure we'll hear it again over the next few months.  It was a stupid criticism then and it would be equally stupid now.  Losing a job is a devastating event -- especially when you have a family to support and need things such as money and insurance.

Not to mention being a prosecutor is a fantastic job.  One can be loyal to the job without being loyal to the paranoid despot who is the current District Attorney.

If you are a current employee of the Harris County District Attorney's Office and you don't want to risk your job by supporting another candidate, there are still many things that you can do to give support. 

First and foremost, tell your family, friends, and neighbors your thoughts in private conversations.  Let them know what you think of your current boss and tell them why you think somebody else would make a better choice.  Encourage those same family, friends, and neighbors to learn more about those candidates and attend those fundraisers and "meet and greets" that you can't safely attend.  Let them know why you can't speak out in public, but find a way to educate them.  Encourage THEM to make a donation since you can't.

Although I don't know if this is still the current law, back in 2012, a candidate only had to list a donor who gave $50.00 or more to a campaign.  There were a lot of folks who donated $49.99 to Mike Anderson's campaign back then.  You don't have to go out in a blaze of glory by starting a blog that bashes Ogg or anything stupid like that, but you can still help other candidates if you so choose.

Sometimes, those little gestures of support are far more sincere and powerful than any donation or attendance at a fundraiser.

Carvana Makes It Official

In the midst of all the chaos and scandal going on over at the Harris County District Attorney's Office this week, um, month, um, year, um entire Administration, lately, it is nice to see some positive news coming out the Criminal Justice World.

Former Bureau Chief Carvana Cloud has announced her official candidacy for the Democratic nomination for the Office of the Harris County District Attorney in 2020.

Her official website is https://www.carvana2020.com/.

As I mentioned in a post last week, I think the world of Carvana as a person with honesty, integrity, intelligence, and kindness.  I was a fan of hers when she was a brand new prosecutor, and I have always remained a fan and a friend of hers.  

When Kim Ogg hired Carvana to be in her Administration, I thought it was the best move Ogg could have possibly make, and I was glad to see Carvana promoted to Bureau Chief earlier this year.  As you probably know already, Carvana announced her immediate resignation the week before last.

Over the weekend, her website went up, confirming her candidacy for District Attorney.

Carvana is a tremendous candidate and a force to reckoned with.  She has a large amount of support from within the Harris County District Attorney's Office, which will be interesting.  Given Kim Ogg's level of paranoia and low threshold for accusing people of disloyalty, that's going to be a really horrible challenging place to work until the primary on March 3, 2020.

Somewhere, somehow this all seems familiar.  I think I heard a story once about a District Attorney who was wildly unpopular with her prosecutors.  She treated them with suspicion and paranoia and ruled with an iron fist.   And then a charismatic and better-qualified candidate ran against that District Attorney and beat her in her own primary.   

Seems like there is a moral to this story somewhere.  Something about people who don't learn the lessons of history being doomed to repeat it?   

The Implosion of Kim Ogg

Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg is having a rough year.

It started back in February when she incurred the wrath of the Texas Criminal Justice Commission by having the audacity to ask for funding for more prosecutors at the Office.  As it turns out, Ogg's progressive supporters don't want money spent on more prosecutors, because they believe it only leads to more prosecuting.  They preferred that any extra money received by the D.A.'s Office be spent on rehabilitative programs instead.  Ogg defended her request by pointing out that overworked prosecutors were no gift to Justice either, and she repeated her request several more times throughout the year.

As it turns out, she was using some seriously fuzzy math when making her non-progressive plea for prosecutors.  In June, Houston Chronicle reporter Keri Blakinger called out Ogg for using misleading stats to inflate the number of cases each individual prosecutor supposedly carried.  So, not only did Ogg violate the progressive spirit in asking for more prosecutors, she kinda sorta lied to the Commissioners' Court in doing so.  Oops.

Even though things were rough with her Progressive base, Ogg could at least rely on some stability in her upper Administration, right?  Not quite.  In April, Blakinger wrote an article noting that 140 prosecutors had left the Office since Ogg took over the reins.  Ogg and her supporters dismissed this as "normal" and blamed the departures on Hurricane Harvey and prosecutors not willing to embrace her awesome progressiveness.  The following month, Ogg fired her own 1st Assistant, Tom Berg.

The firing of Berg was probably one of the most telling moments of the Ogg Administration.  As I noted in this post, Berg was (and now is again) a highly respected defense attorney and military veteran.  He was handpicked by Kim Ogg when she became District Attorney and he lent credibility to her tenure.  Although all of the details have never been clearly established, Ogg fired Berg because he disagreed with her.  In doing so, she clearly demonstrated that advice from a respected colleague did not stand a chance in the face of Ogg's ego.

By the end of the summer, Ogg had two of her former employees, Audia Jones and Lori DeAngelo, announcing that they would run against their former boss for D.A. in 2020.

With Ogg's support waning with her progressive base, Ogg seemed to shamelessly shift into a new "tough on crime" campaign.

On October 11th, Ogg posted a photograph on her Twitter account that showed her walking with Cassidy Stay, the surviving victim of a rampage that left Stay's entire family dead.

In this clearly staged photo, Ogg takes implied credit for the jury delivering the death penalty to Ronald Haskell for the murders. In addition to this sending a decidedly unprogressive message about Ogg's willingness to seek death on some cases, it was also insanely disingenuous.  Ogg had absolutely nothing to do with Haskell's trial.  Her post neglected to mention that prosecutors Samantha Knecht, Lauren Bard, and Kaylynn Williford actually tried the case.  

Personally, I find this egregious on so many levels.  First of all, rolling out the victim of a horrific crime for your own personal photo shoot is mortifying.  I mean, beyond words mortifying.  The fact that Ogg did it on a case she didn't have anything to do with is a level of shamelessness that I don't know that I've ever encountered before.  The true prosecutors didn't publish any photos with Cassidy.  They just did their jobs.  

Ogg wouldn't understand that.  She's not a prosecutor.  She's a politician.

Moving on . . .

In October, Ogg napalmed the last bridge between her and her progressive base with an abrupt about-face on her feelings towards the notorious "Bail Bond Settlement."  Asserting herself into a lawsuit settlement (to which she was not a party), Ogg invited "about 100 police chiefs" to come to court with her and oppose the settlement.  My, how far we have traveled since the days when we were cutting off HPD's access to criminal databases!  

I just have this visual image of how this news was received at Progressive Prosecution headquarters:  Kim is doing what?!?!  And she invited who?!?!

If Ogg was hoping that the month of November would be better for her, she was sadly mistaken.  Late last week, Bureau Chief Carvana Cloud announced her resignation from the District Attorney's Office, effective immediately.   The ramifications of this development cannot be overstated.

To begin with, Cloud is immensely popular with both prosecutors and the defense bar.  She is highly regarded as smart, honest, and kind.  She was initially hired as a prosecutor during the Rosenthal Administration and rose quickly through the ranks.  She supported 2008 Democratic candidate Clarence Bradford for D.A. and was retaliated against when Pat Lykos prevailed in the election.  She left the Office in July of 2009.

Cloud was recruited to return to the Office by Kim Ogg in 2016 as the head of the Family Criminal Law Division -- a move that I was very excited to learn about.  Earlier this year, she was promoted to Bureau Chief by Ogg.  Given her history with Ogg, her abrupt departure last week speaks volumes.  Although she has yet to confirm anything officially, it is all but certain that she plans to challenge Ogg in the Democratic primary in March.

Ogg should be afraid.  Very afraid.  Cloud is charismatic, experienced, and respected.  Unlike Ogg, she is not at all controversial.  She's a stellar candidate.

And, as if all of that weren't enough to make Kim Ogg want to just hibernate until 2020, we have this late-breaking news.  Today, the Houston Police Officer's Union issued a statement blasting the Harris County District Attorney's Office for refusing attempted sexual assault charges at intake.  It reads, in part:

Our officer contacted Assistant District Attorney John Denholm and relayed the details of the attempted sexual assault, a 3rd degree felony.  Denholm asked the officer whether the complainant was "illegal."  The officer advised that he did not ask and did not think it was relevant.  Denholm then advised the officer that the officer should know if the complainant is illegal or not and futher inquired whether the complainant had a driver's license.  The officer advised Denholm that the complainant had a "Mexican Consulate ID card."  Denholm then stated that he would not touch that case since the complainant is "illegal" and declined any charges.

Now, anyone who reads this blog knows of my opinion that John Denholm has been an unethical idiot and suck up.  He once filed a grievance with the State Bar because I did a negative blog post about the ludicrous warrant that he and (now Chief Investigator) Steve Clappart drafted in their defense of David Temple.  That being said, I knew that Denholm was stupid when he tried to draft a Capital Murder warrant against an innocent kid, but I never knew he would be so dumb as to do something like deny charges on someone because they were potentially in the country illegally.

Some might call Denholm's response somewhat . . . insanely racist?

Inexplicably, rather than firing Denholm, the Ogg Administration just chose to "reassign" him.  They moved him from the Intake Division to the Gangs Unit which I believe still falls under the umbrella of Special Crimes.  Maybe things have changed drastically since I left the Office in 2008, but when I was there, Intake was a punishment (or starter) position and Special Crimes was a reward position for talented and senior prosecutors.

So, the Ogg Administration more or less just rewarded a numbskull prosecutor who was rejecting charges at Intake based on the status of the victim?   In what world does that make any sense?

Kim Ogg's repeated implosions make the scandals that rocked the Lykos Administration seem tame by comparison. It will be interesting to see if Ogg makes any attempt to start making things right, or if she will just continue to double down on disaster.  If things continue the way they have been going, Ogg seems destined to suffer the same fate that Lykos did in her own primary back in 2012.

Lisa Falkenberg's Column on Carvana

In case you haven't seen it already, make sure to check out Lisa's column on Carvana Cloud leaving the Office in today's Chronicle.

I love it that Lykos gets caught in a lie about the number of minorities in the Office. I also think its pretty damn interesting that she doesn't deny screwing over Carvana for political reasons. Hopefully Lisa's column today will make more citizens of Harris County aware of what the hell Lykos and her Davidians are doing.

Another Loss for the Office

Prosecutor and new Mom, Carvana Cloud turned in her letter of resignation this morning.

Given the way Pat Lykos and the Gang treated her during the past several months, it is no surprise that she decided to leave a place where she was no longer appreciated. Given that Lykos campaigned on diversity, common sense would have seemed to dictate that she and her minions should do everything in their power to have talked Carvana into staying. Unfortunately, common sense isn't something the Office possesses any longer.

I wish Carvana my sincere congratulations -- first (and most importantly) on the New Baby!

But second on escaping an office that is going down the tubes and never appreciated all you did for it.

Best of luck, Carvana!