The 2022 Election: Overview - Part One of Three

Definitely, my least favorite part of this blog has become the expectation that I do a write-up on the candidates when election time comes around.  Y'all have no idea how much it stresses me out!  The reason it stresses me out is that in the vast majority of the races, I have two friends running against each other.  Usually, those friends are great people and usually, those friends are both very qualified for the office that they seek.  That's a no-win situation for me to write about and that is usually compounded when I don't make a clear choice and get called out for wimping out.  To paraphrase the late, great Ben Parker, with great blogging comes great responsibility, unfortunately.

While I will reluctantly acknowledge that I sometimes "wimp out" on making a clear choice between two people that I consider to be friends that are qualified for the Bench, I do want to make it clear that I am completely honest about a person's ability to be an elected official even if they are a friend.  That situation hasn't come up often in the fourteen years that I've been running this blog, but it has happened.  On more than one occasion, I've lost a friend for being honest about my thoughts on him or her as a candidate.

I've also been clear when I've supported who I thought was the better candidate, even though I knew they didn't have a snowball's chance in Hell of winning.  Over the years, I've been treated with varying degrees of warmth by the candidates who ultimately prevailed despite my endorsement of their opponents.   

I write all of this to say to my critics who get mad when they feel that I didn't say enough about one race or the other:  it isn't always pleasant, and I will be more than happy to give you a free tutorial on running your own blog if you would like to share a different message than mine.  If Don Hooper can do it, so can you!

So, moving on . . . 

I broke these write-ups into three parts.  This overview, the District Court Races (and District Clerk), and the County Court Races.  Otherwise, it would be too damn long.

I wanted to do an overview this year because I wanted to point out (yet again) how much misinformation there has been this year about the Criminal Justice System, and how much it bothers me.  I have watched some very honest, brave, and good judges get blasted time and again in the media for doing the jobs that they were sworn to do.  I've seen insanely irresponsible reporting lead to death threats against judges for following the law.  I've seen them take more blame for murders than the people who actually committed them.  The vilification has been off the charts, and completely and totally undeserved.

I recently did something unusual by having a sit-down lunch with someone I had been arguing with on Twitter about these issues.  It was a strange set of circumstances that led up to the lunch.  A blowhard who calls himself "Common Sense Bob" on Twitter had initiated the idea by threatening to show up at my office with some "friends," and I countered by telling him I would provide food.  Unsurprisingly, the Bob didn't show up, but one of the other people did and we had lunch to discuss the criminal justice system.

I think it is a testament to what a toxic environment Twitter is because I actually enjoyed the lunch quite a bit.  We fought like children on Twitter but had a great talk in person.  We talked for about thirty minutes about things we had in common before we moved on to criminal justice.  We listened politely to each other's thoughts on the system.  Her experiences as a victim of crime understandably influenced her thoughts in a way that made perfect sense.  She agreed with me that I thought the judges were getting all the blame while the District Attorney's Office wasn't being held accountable for their part in the rise of crime.   We disagreed on bond reform, but the conversation was cordial and I know that I was glad we had had it.  I don't know that it changed my position on anything, but it added to my perspective on many things (including how double-parking as a public official should be considered political suicide).

So here are some of the takeaways that I wanted to point out before talking about the judges themselves:

1.  The Relationship between County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Criminal Court Judges ends at Party Affiliation.  Love her or hate her, Lina Hidalgo's title of judge does not affiliate her with actual presiding judges in criminal courtrooms.  They are all Democrats and that's where the similarities end.

I've got no problem with Judge Hidalgo and as someone with inside knowledge about her staff being indicted, I can tell you that those charges are utter horsecrap.  There is a difference between doing something that is bad optics and something that is illegal.  Hidalgo may have stepped in some crap on optics, but she didn't break the law.  Neither did her staffers, and it turns my stomach to see them being paraded around on political commercials as evidence of corruption.  

That being said, I'm nowhere near as invested in the Hidalgo/Mealer contest as I am in the Criminal Court Judges race.  If you want to hate on Hidalgo, knock yourself out, but that shouldn't reflect on your choices for the other judges.  They have completely unrelated jobs.  If you think that Hidalgo is "defunding the police" as brainiacs like Kim Ogg and Mark Herman would have you believe, you are wrong, but even if you were right, that shouldn't reflect on the Criminal Court Judges.  That association would be like deciding you hate Whataburger because you once got food poisoning at McDonald's.  

2.  The Rise in Violent Crime is a Nationwide Trend and Houston is no different than other major cities around the country.  It would be comical if it weren't so sad that so many people tend to think that Houston is the only city in the country or world experiencing a rise in violent crime.  The pandemic has led to joblessness, poverty, housing crisis for low-income families, depression, and desperation. These are the pillars of a rise in crime - violent and non-violent alike.  The Republican Party of Harris County has done a spectacular job of somehow juxtaposing a worldwide epidemic with the local Democrats when it comes to blameshifting.  Really, the job they have done has been quite stunning.  I'm sure that you have all seen the signs in front yards that say "Tired of Crime?  Vote Republican."  As if there was no crime in the decades when Harris County was a solidly Republican county.

3.  Misdemeanor charges are not usually predictors of future violence.  One of the most eye-rolling things that I see on the news is when there is a murder arrest and they point out that the accused perpetrator was out on multiple misdemeanor (or even non-violent felony) bonds, as if the misdemeanor judges should have some Nostradamus-like wisdom about what a person with a theft charge is going to do if released upon society.  I do acknowledge that misdemeanor Assault-Family Violence cases are an exception to this, but they are still misdemeanors.  They can have all kinds of conditions that prohibit the Defendant from contacting the Complainant, but they aren't going to be held at No Bond.  If Republican judges do end up sweeping, don't expect that to change.

4.  Judges are not supposed to be an arm of the Prosecution.  I have plenty of friends running for judge as Republicans this go-round and they all seem to have jumped on this bandwagon idea that the Republican Party is selling about judges being responsible for stopping crime.   That makes for a strong and effective campaign message and all, but it is absolutely contrary to what a judge is supposed to do in his or her job description.  Judges are there to call balls and strikes like an umpire in a baseball game.  They aren't there to try to help push one side over the other.  Any judicial candidate that is embracing the idea that it is their job to "stop crime" is basically casting aside their neutrality in advance, and that's troubling to those who like our judges fair and neutral.

5.  The Republican Crime Message has absolutely been Effective.  Although I absolutely disagree and detest the message being sent out that a rise in crime is somehow the fault of Democratic judges, there is no denying that the message has been an effective one.  Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg (who is noticeably not on the ballot this term) has spent thousands and thousands of dollars pumping money into CrimeStoppers so that her friend Andy Kahan could get out the message that a rise in crime isn't the fault of a weak D.A.'s Office, but the fault of judges.   I mean, gosh, if even a Democrat like Kim Ogg is saying that other Democrats are not safe for Harris County, then it must be true, right?  Mattress Mack is helping pay for commercials during every Astros playoff game and those commercials alternate between talking about how CrimeStopppers needs more money because Harris County is so unsafe and then accusing Lina Hidalgo of being a criminal. 

The Republican message is out there loudly and effectively and the local Democratic Party's response has paled in comparison.  The non-Presidential election years have historically been good for Republicans (with the exception of 2018 when the Beto vs. Cruz race brought the Dems to the polls in droves), and I expect that the margins will be far tighter this year.  I honestly have no prediction on how this year will turn out.  Nothing would surprise me.

Whatever your preferences are this election season, please make sure to vote.  Make sure to tell your friends and family your thoughts on the Criminal Justice System and the candidates on the ballot.  Tell them to get out there and vote, too.

Mark Herman's Shameless Publicity Stunt

It always seems like an insincere platitude whenever a defense attorney leads off with talking about his or her respect for cops, but bear with me for a moment.  

I grew up idolizing the police and wanted to be an FBI agent from about the age of ten.  There wasn't a true crime book or police procedural drama that I didn't watch wanting to be just like those guys.  My biggest professional mentor in my life was HPD and the reverence I have for that department has extended well past my tenure as a prosecutor.  I admire the work they do.  I admire their selflessness.  I admire their bravery.

But nobody's perfect.

And if I were to have to pick the biggest flaw that I see as a character trait in many of the police officers that I have known and admired over the years, it is that police have a real big stumbling block when it comes to ever admitting that they've done something wrong.

And that's a big problem when the decisions that your profession makes can literally destroy the life of general citizens.

Any lawyer who has a spent time in the criminal justice system -- whether prosecutor, defense, or both -- could definitely tell you some epic stories where a police officer got a little too aggressive in his or her pursuit of "justice" to the degree that it defied the law or Code of Criminal Procedure.  My personal favorite is a story told to me by my buddy Ed McClees, about a police officer with the H.I.S.D. police department who called the Harris County District Attorney's Office Intake Division looking for charges.

The very aggressive officer told Ed that a kid in a school classroom had turned off the lights in the classroom, and the whole class started acting up.  What charges did he want Ed to file on this young student?  He wanted Inciting a Riot.  True story.  Ed less-than-politely declined.

In a less humorous incident, Luci Davidson was once appointed to represent a man charged with possession of a controlled substance.  The probable cause that the arresting officer listed for why he had detained and subsequently searched the defendant was that the defendant had been "walking in the roadway where a sidewalk was provided" (and yes, that is a real Class C offense and one that police officers use extremely frequently to stop and search people in, ahem, "less affluent" neighborhoods).  Luci's client told her that he was walking in the street, and yes, there was a sidewalk provided.  However, a resident had parallel parked his 18-wheeler in front of his house, thus making the sidewalk unpassable.  A Google Maps satellite photo showed the 18-wheeler in the area in question and the case was dismissed due to no probable cause.

A week or so later, the same defendant reached out to Luci through his lawyer.  He had been arrested again by the same officer in the exact same spot and allegedly carrying the exact same amount of crack -- down to 1/100th of a gram.  Luci reached out to the new prosecutor and the case was dismissed for no probable cause again.  And last I heard, the police officer in question had drawn himself an internal officers investigation.

The point being that cops aren't perfect and that the Criminal Justice System has measures in place to make sure an injustice doesn't happen when a cop is wrong -- or even dirty.  But, as I mentioned before, cops don't like being told they are wrong.  They don't like it at all.  Especially not when they are being told that they are wrong by someone they consider to be some damn liberal judge who clearly must hate the police if they dare to disagree with them.

Which brings us to Harris County Precinct Four Constable Mark "Hey! Look at Me!" Herman, who held a theatrical press conference yesterday to announce that these damn liberal judges had just disagreed with him too many times by finding no probable cause on his deputies' cases, and dammit, he was just going to refile them all.

Oh boy.  Where to begin?

I guess let's start with what Probable Cause is.  If you aren't a lawyer, you should know that the legal system has different "standards of proof" that must be shown for something to happen in the legal system.  You've probably heard all of those different levels of standards of proof before.  We all know that before a person can be convicted of a crime that it must be proven "beyond a reasonable doubt" and that's literally the highest standard of proof listed in the legal system.  A slightly lesser standard of proof is labeled as "Clear and Convincing Evidence," which is the standard the Family Courts must find before they strip a child away from his parents for an allegation of harm to the child's well-being.  Below that is a "Preponderance of Evidence" which essentially translates to "more likely than not" or "just a hair above 50% convinced" and that's the standard of proof used in civil lawsuits -- from a small claims court fender bender to a multi-million dollar lawsuit.

Somewhere below (far below) is Probable Cause.  Probable Cause is what is required by the 4th Amendment to the United States Constitution to protect against unreasonable searches and seizures.  It isn't a very high standard of evidence that police really have to meet before arresting and/or searching a person.  In essence, it just means that the police officer has to be able to state a legal reason that he believes that a person has committed a crime.  

It doesn't take much.

When a judge finds that a police officer's arrest was done without Probable Cause, they are basically telling them that their case never even got off the launchpad, and that's usually with good reason.  I've had plenty of cases end when a judge found no probable cause on a case.  Here are some examples:

1.  I've had several cases where the police arrested clients for Unlawful Carrying a Firearm despite the client having a Concealed Carry License.  The officers in question thought that their understanding of the law negated the power of CHL.  They were wrong.

2.  Plenty of other cases were filed where everyone in a car was charged with possessing the same physical drug despite there being no links to the person charged.  Cops will routinely file cases where the "drugs were found in the center console where everyone could have potentially reached them."  We call that "no affirmative links" in the criminal law business.

3.  They stopped the person for no legal reason.  See the example from Luci Davidson above.  I can also recall a time when I was a very young prosecutor when a cop called intake when he had stopped and searched a black man walking through River Oaks.  When I asked him why he had stopped him, his response (no shit) was "Well, it was River Oaks.  You know . . . "  I did not know.  Charges rejected for No Probable Cause and the issue was reported to my supervisor.

4.  The search had no Probable Cause.  I once had a cop who had responded to a party at a house where there was reported underage drinking.  They went inside the apartment, which was dicey but probably legal.  They then started searching all the purses that party-goers had left in a bedroom which was when they found weed in a purse later identified to be my client's.  No probable cause on the search meant the drugs were excluded which meant that my client was "no PCed" (it's a verb for some of us) and sent home.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of folks out there who have no interest in getting bogged down in the technicalities of Constitutional Law or the Penal Code or the Code of Criminal Procedure, and dammit, if a police officer said this person needs to be arrested, then they better stay arrested!  They say "if you broke the law, there is no excuse" without realizing the irony of their statement, since making an arrest without Probable Cause is, um, well, breaking the law.  

These are the folks that Mark Herman's silly little press conference was designed to fire up, and boy did it work.  The Lock 'Em Up crowd was all over it on Twitter, including this Mark Herman Superfan.

This non-lawyer thinks that judges are dismissing cases "lazily."  When "clearly the DA had already acc charges."  

Oh dear Lord.

So, next, we move to the D.A. Intake.  It's been a minute since I wrote about what D.A. Intake is like.  It's been a lot of minutes actually since I wrote this post back when I was still a prosecutor!  I'm sure the intake system has changed somewhat over the past (good God, has it really been 14?) years.  But suffice it to say, that intake is a triage system where prosecutors get a very brief, one-sided view of a case from an officer.  There is no defense attorney providing a counter-point.  There is no judge listening in.  There is no scrutiny.  And there is no obligation for the police officer to provide ALL of the details.  If you are a random citizen that thinks that crap charges don't come out of intake every hour on the hour, you are seriously deluding yourself.

This leads me to my next topic, which I will loosely title "How to Talk to Your Law Enforcement Fans about Precinct Four."

It is an unspoken truth in the Harris County Criminal Justice System (on both the prosecutorial and defense side) that some law enforcement agencies are just, well, better than others when it comes to doing their jobs.  If your client got charged with a crime by the Houston Police Department or the Harris County Sheriff's Office, odds are that the officers involved knew what they were doing and probably did it pretty well (usually, not always).  Some of the bigger municipalities in Harris County are generally pretty competent too.  Pasadena, Baytown, Deer Park, etc.  There's a sliding scale amongst departments and there have been more than a few attempts to get a Top 30 list on paper.

Unfortunately, in the lower tier of this is the Precinct Four Constables' Office.  When I was a prosecutor, there was a running joke that the worst thing you could hear on a phone call at Intake was "This is Deputy So-and-So from Precinct Four, and I've got a clusterfuck for you . . . "  Now, obviously, this doesn't mean that all Pct. 4 deputies are bad.  I have a very dear friend of mine who has worked there for a long time and she is very smart and I wouldn't want to hurt her feelings for the world.  But that Department has had more than its fair share of problems over the years, and I'd be lying if I said that I didn't get excited whenever I have a new case investigated by Precinct Four.  The odds are just so good that there is going to be a colossal screw-up in there somewhere.

Part of the reason is that the position of Constable is an elected position and Precinct Four covers an extremely conservative area in Harris County.  It is a natural flow of events that they are going to elect the most law-and-order-tough-talking dude they can to be Constable, regardless of how little he actually knows about the law and procedure.  In that, Mark Herman is the perfect match for the territory.  Intellectual honesty in policing has never really been his strong suit and his message of "guilty is guilty, damn the Constitution" is music to many a voter's ears out there.  

Let's go back to Twitter for a second.

Here, a defense attorney is defending 339th District Court Judge Te'iva Bell who is very highly regarded for the job she has been doing since taking the bench two years ago.  She holds cops and prosecutors to the standards that they are supposed to be held under the Constitution, Penal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure.  She also has no problem dropping the hammer on defendants who have been proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  She is no pushover by any stretch of the imagination.  But in the mind of the Mark Herman Superfan, she found no probable cause on too many of Pct. 4 cases and that makes her "trash."

If you want to clearly illustrate that you have no understanding of the Criminal Justice System, call a respected judge "trash" because she didn't do exactly what the nice policeman wanted her to do.  Even when that nice policeman is just a right-wing politician who doesn't understand or doesn't want to follow the actual law.

More from the SuperFan:

"Cupcake"?  I think she's flirting with me, but I can't let myself get distracted here.  I suppose it didn't dawn on her that if it is the "same judges" (plural) finding issue with the same Constable's Office (singular), that maybe, just maybe, it might be the Constable screwing these cases up.

Another issue with Precinct Four is that as a politically elected office, the elected official (that being, Mark Herman) gets to have his own standards of who does or does not qualify to come work for him.  Yes, they have to be a licensed peace officer, but beyond that, it's open criteria.  There's a lot of cronyism there and you will also find that many some of the employees were either rejected or even terminated by other agencies.  It is also not uncommon for Constable offices to "hold the Commission" for licensed peace officers as "reserve deputies" so that those "reserve deputies" can work lucrative extra jobs doing security for more money.  

You're never going to see Precinct Four working a murder or a serious sexual assault case.  When they are the first responders on serious cases, they generally secure the scene and then call in the Sheriff's Office.  There's a reason for that.  When you are dealing with Precinct Four, you aren't exactly dealing with the Navy SEALS of law enforcement.

Which makes Mark Herman's press conference yesterday all the more flummoxing.  I wasn't there, but according to St. John Barned-Smith's article (that I linked to above despite it being authored by St. John Barned-Smith.  Just kidding, Sinjin!):

"This emboldens the criminals," Herman said.  "The court system is basically telling these criminals that you can break the law, and we'll just say 'there's no probable cause' and we'll dismiss your case."

First off, judges don't dismiss cases except in extremely rare circumstances such as a finding of a Speedy Trial violation (which almost never happens).  There's a big difference between a dismissal and a finding of No Probable Cause.  You would think that the elected Constable would know that.  Secondly, when a judge finds No Probable Cause on a case, he or she isn't telling a "criminal" that they can break the law.  

They are telling a cop that he can't break the law.

Sinjin's article also quoted controversial (and noted "weird dude") Judge Franklin Bynum, who was 100% correct in his assessment of Herman's claims:

"If constables did better work, and the DA did a better job supervising work of constables before make(ing) formal filings, we wouldn't have these kinds of problems."

Say what you want to about Judge Bynum, but he hit the nail on the head with that statement.  This ain't a judge problem.  This a constable problem.

The most concerning part of Mark Herman's publicity stunt yesterday is the bigger issue it speaks to, which is cops ignoring judicial findings to just keep doing whatever the hell they want to.  I suppose in an era where candidates no longer "accept the findings" of an election, it should be no surprise that a political "top cop" would announce that they don't accept the findings of a court.  I suppose if you are a Constable SuperFan, you are completely at ease with having blind faith in the police.  Maybe you would be surprised to know that not even prosecutors have that same blind faith.  At least not the good ones.

Herman refiling cases where a judge has already found no probable cause is the equivalent of a petulant child refusing to accept a parent's decision that they don't like.  I'm not clear on whether or not Kim Ogg's District Attorney's Office is participating in Herman's political theater, but if they are, shame on them.  Herman repeatedly filing cases on citizens even after a judge has shut down that case is Official Oppression.  Don't look to Kim Ogg to do anything about that, though.  It would cost her votes in Precinct Four, and that's what really matters, isn't it?

I do want to clarify one thing.  A case where No Probable Cause is found can be salvaged, both legally and ethically.  Cops can go back and do more work that can ultimately satisfy the judge that Probable Cause does, in fact, exist.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.  It just takes more hard police work and some acceptance that just because a policeman says something doesn't necessarily mean that it is true.

But that's not what Herman is having his officers do with this stunt.  He's just having them refile the same shitty charge (that was already rejected) once again.  

And that's true laziness, Cupcake.

The most concerning thing that came out of Herman's stunt yesterday was how indiscriminately he is refiling these cases where he sees a dismissal was filed (by the prosecutors, not the judges, just FYI).  In one of the cases, a person had entered into a Pre-Trial Intervention program that he had successfully completed and the case was dismissed.  

Herman's office refiled it anyway. 

To put that in simpler terms, Herman filed a charge.  The person was arrested.  The person accepted responsibility.  The person accepted a punishment that gave him the opportunity to get his case dismissed after completing ALL of those requirements.  The case was dismissed after the person did everything asked of him.  And then the elected Constable of Precinct Four charged him AGAIN with the exact same crime because he was so caught up in an asinine publicity stunt that he didn't pay attention to the history of the case.

That level of incompetency is jaw-dropping.

Arresting a citizen for the same crime twice so you can make a political statement is Official Oppression.

And I think there is plenty of Probable Cause to believe that.

Dudegoggles and the Guajuardo Hearing

As most CJC regulars know, there was an interesting hearing in the 263rd District Court on September 21st & 22nd regarding a Motion for Change of Venue in the State of Texas vs. Alex Guajardo.  Defense counsel Justin Keiter had filed the motion in response to pre-trial publicity given to the case by the Harris County District Attorney's Office's Communications Division and elected District Attorney Kim Ogg, herself.  The hearing was a highly watched event due to the fact that Keiter had subpoenaed Ogg to testify.

Although Ogg was definitely the anticipated main attraction of the hearing, the opening act was Dane Schiller, Ogg's Director of Communications.  In my opinion, Schiller's testimony would ultimately prove to be far more entertaining and enlightening than Ogg's.  Schiller unabashedly admitted to several jaw-dropping revelations that were reminiscent of Watergate-era "dirty tricks" that he and the Communications Division employed in an effort to make Kim Ogg more likable cast the Office in a positive light.

First, a little background on the evolution of the "Communications Division" of the Harris County District Attorney's Office . . .

Back in the olden days, there was no such division that I was aware of.  During my tenure there (1999-2008), reporters usually contacted the Office when they had a story they wanted to report on, and that was usually a direct reach out to the prosecutor or staff member involved.  If I tried a high publicity case, the reporters called and talked to me.  It was simple and straightforward.  There was no media "flak" involved.  If they wanted to ask about a policy, they called the District Attorney himself.

Towards the end of my time at the Office (bear with me, it may have been right after my departure), I believe that the Office designated an official spokesperson to help coordinate media inquiries.  If my memory serves, that person was Donna Hawkins, who was a prosecutor who was elevated to that role.  She was followed by former KHOU (and KBTX in Bryan!) reporter Jeff McShan.  I'm definitely fuzzy on the timeline here because I was no longer with the Office, but I'm confident in saying the "Communications Division" was just a tiny portion of the Office, housing only one (maybe two) employees.  I believe that would be the case through the end of the Devon Anderson term.

When Kim Ogg took Office on January 1, 2017, she revamped the idea of the Communication Division.  What had previously been handled by one or two employees has now swelled to far more as the Division filled with a combination of former-Ogg campaign workers, reporters, and aspiring politicians who had failed to get elected or re-elected.   The most recent Office organizational chart I have is from December of 2021, and it listed five employees in the Communications Division and an additional four in the "Community Engagement" Division.

 

The next time Kim Ogg shows up at Commissioners' Court claiming to be defunded and begging for more money for more prosecutors, I hope you will take note of the large number of employees she's paying with her current budget to get her re-elected "promote the Office."  And that's just a list of those actually in the division.  It doesn't account for folks like Mark Goldberg, former HPD chief Clarence Bradford and some others who seem to have some fairly fuzzy lines when trying to outline their job descriptions.

Curiously, the last job that "Community Engagement Supervisor" Anna Carpenter had before being hired by the District Attorney's Office was Campaign Manager for Kim Ogg. Here's a screenshot from her LinkedIn page.

That's a really great gig to get between political seasons!  Glad we taxpayers could help out.

But I digress.  Back to the hearing . . . 

As I was saying, my dear friend Dane Schiller (whom prior to the hearing, I had never actually met in person) was the first witness called to the stand by Keiter.  If you recall, I had written this post back in January about Dane and the fact that I believed him to be exceeding the parameters of his job description by trying to poison legitimate criticisms of the D.A.'s Office with often anonymous personal attacks.  

Keiter did a great job of asking Dane a line of questions to illustrate how the District Attorney's Office under Kim Ogg (and Schiller's Communications Division) go overboard in attempting to "inform the public" with their message.  Dane was clearly comfortable on the stand, grinning from ear to ear as he answered Keiter's questions.  He acknowledged that his job as the Director of Communications his duty was to inform the public about how the District Attorney's Office worked and what was going on at the Courthouse.  He disagreed that multiple press conferences and other media leaks about individual cases were poisoning the well of potential jurors that could ultimately be sitting on those cases.

Keiter then shifted to Dane's methodology for doing his leaks and asked if Schiller had ever utilized another person's identity online to spread his message.  Dane appeared confused and denied having ever done so, qualifying the answer that he had never stolen someone else's identity.  Keiter didn't follow up by asking him if he had created a false individual altogether, like say . . . .Jake Mattius, and the questioning continued.  A few questions later, Schiller apparently thought better of his earlier answer and noted that he does sometimes post online with a "handle" that isn't his real name.

And when Keiter asked, Dane admitted that his online handle was "Dudegoggles."

And that was when things got fun.

The Houston Chronicle's website makes it really easy to click on a person's online handle and have every single comment they've ever written on the Chronicle website show up in chronological order.  As soon as Dane confirmed his online handle under oath, that's exactly what reporters began doing.  None of this was a surprise to me, as noted above, I had accused Dane of being "Dudegoggles" way back in January.  But reporters, like Keri Blakinger and Nicole Hensley were soon publishing on Twitter and other locations some of Dudegoggles' greatest hits, including one where he called judges "clowns" and clearly blamed them for the "crime wave" that Kim Ogg and Crimestoppers have been trying to sell to the general public.

Keiter had the opportunity to ask him about all of these posts.  He also asked him if other members of the Communications Division had online handles where they attacked enemies of the office as well.  He specifically asked if Anna Carpenter was known for posting on Twitter under the handle of "ShePersisted."  Schiller indicated that he didn't know, but that's okay.  I know.  I know because when not being blasted by "Dudegoggles," I've been blasted by "ShePersisted."  ShePersisted and I have some mutual friends on Twitter, so it didn't take long to figure out who she was.  

So rude, Anna. So rude.

The childish antics of Dane Schiller and Anna Carpenter would be no different than those of thousands of other online trolls who bash each other with insults and dishonest statistics online each day, except for the fact that they are doing this as part of their taxpayer-funded jobs.  At some point one has to wonder what exactly smearing critics, bashing judges, and trying cases in the media has to do with the job of being a prosecutor.  The answer, quite simply, is absolutely nothing.  And while we are on the topic of things that aren't in a prosecutor's job description, neither are mandatory appearances to register voters in the name of the elected District Attorney.

Anyone who has half a brain realizes that neither the Communications Division nor the Community Outreach Division have a damn thing to do with criminal prosecution.  They are simply a taxfunded re-election committee that operates year-round for candidate Kim Ogg.  It gives a job to cronies who, in return, do everything they can to keep their boss employed.

So, what does Kim Ogg have to say about this?  As I mentioned above, she was supposed to be the main attraction in the Guajardo hearing, but she was far more polished than Schiller in her responses.  She spent all of about fifteen seconds pretending to be cordial towards Keiter before losing her patience with him. (NOTE:  I get it, Kim.  I was Keiter's chief once.  Trust me, I get it.).  But although she failed to keep her cool, often responding with smart-ass quips to Keiter's questions or pretending not to understand them, she didn't unabashedly admit to pulling childish tricks like Schiller.  Interestingly, she claimed to not know that Schiller was posting anything as "Dudegoggles" on the Chronicle website -- something that no one in the courtroom believed at all.

What Keiter did with Ogg's testimony was far more interesting, however, as he sought to get the elected District Attorney to acknowledge that she had a relationship with Houston Crimestoppers that she utilized to create a campaign against sitting criminal court judges.  Ogg refused to make such an acknowledgment and characterized her press conferences and involvement with Crimestoppers as nothing more than good old-fashioned crime fighting.

Keiter pointed out misleading information that Ogg had signed off on in an amicus brief opposing bail reform, where she had made untrue representations in a Federal case.  Keiter pointed out speaking engagements Ogg had tried to get for Crimestoppers to get her message of dangerous judges out.  Keiter showed Ogg at a press conference about his client.  He did a good job of illustrating that in Ogg's version of criminal justice, it is more about hype than results in a courtroom.  He also pointed out that her Office's success in the courtroom didn't exactly live up to the hype Ogg was promoting outside of it.  

Whether or not Keiter's Motion to Recuse will be granted won't be answered immediately.  Judge Martin said she would rule on it in November.  Win, lose or draw, I think Keiter did a good job of accomplishing what he sought to prove.  Kim Ogg's Communication and Community Outreach Divisions were shown to be spin machines that distanced Ogg from her own office's failures.   Losses in trial, missed deadlines to get people indicted, and motions to hold defendants at no bond were glossed over by a PR machine designed to shift the blame to someone else while scaring the public about how dangerous Houston had become.

And if in the process of doing all of that public blameshifting, a Defendant's rights to a neutral jury got compromised, so be it.

One of the best moments in the hearing was when Keiter read Kim Ogg's acceptance speech from 2016 back to her.  He noted that she promised the defense bar fairness and "evidence-based prosecutions" in her administration.  He asked her if she still agreed with that promise.  She said that she did.

No one in the courtroom believed her.

When you have true evidence-based prosecutions, you don't need hype.  

You don't need spin.

And you damn sure don't need Dudegoggles.

Kim Ogg blames the Judges . . . yet again

It's just so damn hard being a prosecutor these days.  

At least, it is in Harris County.

It was so much easier back when I was there.  Our judges were almost ALL former prosecutors.  The rulings all went our way.  We had people who trained us on how to try cases.  We went to trial a lot.  We won a lot.  It was crazy!  When I asked my old division chief researched what the win/loss ratio was during our tenure at the Office back in the day, she told me I learned that it was somewhere in the low to mid-90% win rate.

These days, those stats are a bit different.  My friend, Jeff Ross, at his Show Me the Justice blog keeps a running tab of the win/loss column.  Here are the current stats for 2022 as of this writing:

That translates into a little better than 67% win rate for the State.  If this was a report card, it would be a failing grade.

A quick glance at the wins and losses for last week over at Show Me the Justice profile five guilty verdicts for the State and seven not guilty verdicts for the Defense Bar.  Yikes!  That's a 41% win rate.  On Friday, the Defense Bar had three not guilties and one mid-trial dismissal.  I don't know what the final stats for the week are yet, but that was definitely a bad day for Kim Ogg's office.

There are a variety of reasons why a case tanks in a trial, but they tend to fall under two main branches in my experience:

1.  The case could have been tried better; or

2.  The case shouldn't have been tried in the first place.

Of the two choices, the latter is the usual culprit. 

In an ideal world (that does not exist), prosecutors should only be going to trial on cases that they know good and well they will have no problem proving to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.  In that ideal world, a not guilty means the prosecutors got it wrong when they accused the Defendant to a jury.  All of those opportunities to have not filed charges, gotten the case no billed at Grand Jury, or to have just dismissed the damn case were not taken and the jury just did what the prosecutors should have done in the first place, right?

Of course, the ideal world isn't a fair comparison and any prosecutor who has never lost a case hasn't been doing the job long enough.  It happens.  If it hasn't happened yet, it will.  As one of my colleagues at the Office once remarked after a tough loss, "you aren't a real prosecutor until you've lost a murder case."  Statistics don't always tell a complete story.  A prosecutor who has lost a case or two isn't a bad prosecutor.

But when we start looking at some pretty overwhelming numbers like 67% or 41%, we are getting the message that the Great State of Texas (as represented in Harris County) is getting it wrong somewhere between one third to one half of the time, there may be a little bit of a cause for concern.

Could some of those cases have been tried better?  Possibly.  Given the fact that the District Attorney's Office under Kim Ogg started off by firing roughly 40 experienced prosecutors (and subsequently running off countless others over the past five years), there isn't exactly an abundance of teaching going on in the building.  Any good trial lawyer will tell you that we steal shamelessly from other lawyers when it comes to what we do in trial.  When I was there, I had the opportunity to learn from prosecutors who had been there for over thirty years.  These days, rookie prosecutors are being "trained" by lawyers that started at the Office last year.  

But the far bigger problem is that bad cases are going to trial when they should have been dismissed, no billed, or never filed in the first place.  That doesn't necessarily mean that the Defendant is factually innocent, but it does mean that the evidence wasn't there beyond a reasonable doubt when the jury was sworn in.  From an ethical standpoint, if that's the case, the prosecutor is duty bound to dismiss.   

Unfortunately, dismissing a case leads to having explain why the case got dismissed to a supervisor -- maybe even someone in Kim Ogg's command staff.  Maybe even to Kimbra, herself -- and that is a scary proposition.  When your boss has the power to fire you and your boss is mentally unstable when displeased, maybe it would be better to just take that case to trial.  

Who cares if you get your ass kicked in trial?  At least you still have your job.

Why were the stats better when I was a prosecutor?  It was because we knew that we could dismiss a shitty case that we couldn't prove and not have to worry that we would get in trouble or fired over it.  It was ALMOST like our supervisors (and the elected District Attorneys themselves) trusted us to do the job that they hired us to do.

So, what's the Ogg Administration's answer to why trials aren't going so hot for them?  Follow these simple steps:

Step 1 -- run a press release every time you secure a conviction (whether by trial or by plea bargain).

Step 2 -- hope nobody notices the losses

Step 3 -- blame the judges

As I've pointed out time and again, Kim Ogg's District Attorney's Office has been absolutely shameless in scapegoating the judges for all of its own problems.  From blaming the judges for setting bonds on cases where the State failed to ask for a hearing to hold them at no bond to just deciding that dammit, those big mean judges just aren't of the right attitude to give them a fair trial, Ogg and Company have passed the buck more times than Tom Brady has passed a football. 

In June, prosecutors failed to present the aggravated robbery cases of Antjuan Dixon to a Grand Jury within 90 days, as required under the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure.  As a result, Dixon was entitled to a bond that he could make from Judge Danny Lacayo under the law.  Judge Lacayo had no discretion under this.  None.  Zero.  Ogg's office dropped the ball and Judge Lacayo had to follow the law.  This did not slow down Ogg's surrogate and old friend from CrimeStoppers, Andy Kahan, from going on air with Fox 26's Randy Wallace, to blame Lacayo.  Kim Ogg makes Bart Simpson looks like Harry S Truman when it comes to dodging responsibility.  (SIDE NOTE:  Randy Wallace should really consult with a legal expert before going on air with some of his stories.   He's really running the risk of making Fox News seem biased and untrustworthy.)

The Ogg Administration is at it again, according to today's Houston Chronicle.   The Office is trying to recuse 339th Judge Te'iva Bell from a case because she previously granted a mistrial based on Harris County District Clerk Marilyn Burgess' ridiculously unnecessary presentation to the jury panel.  Judge Bell was forced to make a ruling on a motion for mistrial made in a murder case because Burgess had let the panel know how important their job was to victims.   Although some prosecutorial-minded friends may disagree with me, I think she made the right call.  One has to wonder how the State would feel if the panel had heard from a group of speakers like Anthony Graves,Michael Morton or others who had been wrongfully charged and/or convicted before they came over to sit on a murder case.

The idea of trying to recuse a judge because you disagreed with a ruling is nothing short of absurd.  No trial lawyer has ever participated in a trial where they agreed with every ruling the judge made.  The answer to that problem is an objection and an appeal if the objection is overruled.  It is NOT getting rid of the judge, and Kim Ogg knows that.

This is all part of a disturbing trend within Ogg's office of trying to ax the judge when they don't like the rulings or attitude that they are getting.  They've done it to Judge Luong.  They are now doing it to Judge Bell.  They've gone so far as to run a slate of candidates against judges they don't like, and in the case of Judge Franklin Bynum, they've exerted a tremendous amount of effort into having him completely removed from the Bench entirely.

The message coming from Kim Ogg's District Attorney's Office is clear.  When the score of the game looks bad for your team, don't blame the coaches or players when you obviously need new referees.

SIDE NOTE:  I'm not exactly sure why Kim Ogg is still considered to be a Democrat.  At this point, she has proven herself more than willing to systematically attack every other local member of the Party to ingratiate herself with Republican voters.  She's been far more effective at damaging the Dems' chances in November than anyone from the official Republican Party has.  Hell, she's even brought in Rachel Palmer Hooper as a special prosecutor at $450 an hour even though Rachel is literally the General Counsel for the Texas GOP.  But that's a topic for another day . . . 

And, of course, if all else fails and steps 1 through 3 don't work, move on to Step 4 . . .

Step 4 -- point out that anyone who isn't satisfied by steps 1 through 3 is just biased.

In Kim Ogg's D.A.'s Office, nothing is her fault.  It's just the rest of the world . . . 

Judge Renee Magee

 As most of you know, Judge Renee Magee passed away last week.  It is my understanding that she had been sick for some time, but wished to keep that private.

Although I don't post here as much as I used to, Renee played a significant role in my life and career and I am very sad to hear of her passing.  She was a lovely and kind person and I would not be in Harris County if it weren't for her.

As I've mentioned here several times, my first introduction to working at the Harris County District Attorney's Office was in the Summer of 1998 when I had an academic internship in the 209th District Court.  Elsa Alcala was the chief and Renee was the Two in the court.   I did a lot of work for Renee that summer as she got ready on trial cases.  She was a very devoted and hardworking prosecutor and I learned a lot from her.  She was also incredibly kind and great to work for.

She and Elsa both wrote letters of recommendation for me when I applied to be a pre-commit with the office, and when that didn't happen, Renee was very encouraging to me to apply again once I received my bar results.  She was Deputy Dawg of Misdemeanor when the bar results called and (back in the day of dial-up internet) she looked to see that I had passed.  She called me soon after, encouraging me to apply.  Two weeks later, I was working in Harris County.

During my time at the Office, we were never assigned to the same court, but we chatted whenever we saw each other.  She was also sweet.  Always happy.  Always encouraging and supportive.  Always a friend.

We lost touch for a while when Lykos was elected and I left the Office, but she appointed me fairly frequently once she became the judge of the 337th District Court.  During her tenure, I would try three cases in front of her, and we butted heads during the course of those trials.  I thought she still had too much prosecutor in her, and I think she thought I had way too much defense attorney in me.

When she left the bench, we lost contact except through Facebook.  I had understood that she was spending most of her time in Galveston with her family.  I had heard that she had a health incident a few years ago, but I was under the impression that she had recovered from it.  

Despite our differences in trial, Renee Magee remained a sweet, wonderful person.  She had a strong morale compass and although we differed, I respected her.  I'm very sad to hear of her passing.  

Uvalde

Ten years ago, the day of the Sandy Hook shooting happened to coincide with the day of my oldest son's Christmas pageant at his elementary school.  He was in kindergarten.

As I recall, the early reports that came in that afternoon had reported a shooting at a school with two dead -- maybe one of them was the shooter.  Sadly, a shooting at a school was not an unusual report -- at least, not initially.  Shortly before my wife and I left our house to go to the pageant, there was an update.  Twenty-six people were killed -- the majority of them young children.

The pageant was filled with elementary school kids, filled with excitement to be doing a play but in all honesty, probably more excited about the impending break.  It was impossible not to compare their ages to the ages of the children of Sandy Hook.  The parents in the auditorium had forced smiles as their kids ran around, oblivious to the tragedies of the world.  

Before the program began, the principal spoke and asked for a moment of silence for the day's event -- her words carefully worded so as not to clue any of the children in on the unspeakable tragedy that had happened earlier.  Many of the kids chattered on through the moment of silence, unaware of what it was for or what it represented.  I assume that all parents were thinking the same type of thoughts that I was. 

What if that happened at my kid's school? 

A horrible thought that one immediately pushes out of his head -- only to have it return a few seconds later.  I don't know how parents who have lost children survive.  The mere thought of it wrecks me.

Tonight was my youngest son's closing ceremony for his Little League baseball season.  He made the All-Star Team!  He was so excited.  We were so excited.

And again, we filed into an auditorium filled with kids, oblivious to the day's events.  Again, a speaker held a moment of silence using words ambiguous enough to keep reality away from the hyper children in the room.  Again, the parents looked at each other with forced smiles.  Again, I assumed the parents in the room thought the same type of thoughts I was having.

Every day, I drive my kids to school.  My oldest still hasn't gotten his driver's license, which I'm secretly happy about.  I'm still trying to soak up even the smallest moments where he still needs me.  But every morning, when I drop them off at their respective schools, I tell them I love them.  

And I keep trying to push out those horrible thoughts.

What if that happened at my kid's school?  

It's at the back of my mind every time they get out of my car and go into the care of somebody else who isn't me.

Every. Damn. Time.

This is the world we live in and it is a very dark place.  Especially on days like today.  And that day in December ten years ago.  And the multitude of days in between.  And the days before Sandy Hook.  And without a doubt, the days that are bound to come.

Is gun control the answer?  I'm not here to debate that.  It certainly wouldn't hurt, but I doubt it would be a cure-all by any stretch of the imagination.  I will say that the politicians who speed to the podium to instantly absolve guns from any level of culpability make me want to vomit.

Offering thoughts and prayers has become so overused that it has become insulting.  

The reality is there are no answers in the face of tragedy.  Today, the pain is fresh.  Tomorrow, the pain may be just a slight bit less than the day before.  At some point, maybe it will settle into just a tolerable level of numbness.

I have no solutions.  I just have thoughts and prayers.  My thoughts are of those who lost their lives and their families and loved ones.

My prayers are that it never happens to my children.

I've said the same prayer every day since they were born.

It's all I know to do anymore.

Fun in Misdemeanor Court

E-Mail # 1 dated May 5th -- Me to Prosecutors, CLO and Court Coordinator:  Hello.  My client is on the docket for a (6 month) PTI completion on May 16th.  I believe she is in full compliance.  Would it be possible to dismiss her case prior to that date so that she does not have to miss work?  Thanks.

CRICKETS CHIRPING

E-Mail # 2 dated May 12th --  Me to Prosecutors, CLO, and Court Coordinator:  Hello.  Just following up here.  My client is on the docket for a (6 month) PTI completion on May 16th.  I believe she is in full compliance.  Would it be possible to dismiss her case prior to that date so that she does not have to miss work?  Thanks.

E-Mail Response from Chief on May 12th --  Reply to all -- Hello.  Not sure if you e-mailed certificates of completion (of required courses) to another chief, but I do not have them.  Could you forward them to me and I will dismiss?

E-Mail # 3 on May 12th --  Reply to all -- My client said she gave them to her supervision officer, but if you don't have them, I will get them and send them to you.

E-Mail Response from Probation Supervisor on May 12th -- Reply to all --  I received the certificates of completion and I will send them to the chief.

E-Mail # 4 on May 13th --  Reply to all -- Thank you.  Will my client need to appear in person on Monday or will the case be dismissed off docket?

E-Mail Response from Probation Supervisor on May 13th --  Reply to all -- I don't know if your client has to be there or not.  Chief, can you please advise?

CRICKETS CHIRPING

THIS MORNING IN COURT

ME:  Good morning, did you dismiss my client's case?

CHIEF (pulling up my client's case on computer):  Did you send me the paperwork?

ME:  No, the probation supervisor . . .

CHIEF:  You need to calm down!

ME:  Um, I am calm.

CHIEF:  You never sent me the contract.

ME:  Wait.  What?  The PTI contract?

CHIEF:  Calm down.

ME:  I am calm, but why would I have sent you the PTI contract?

CHIEF:  It is not in my e-mails.

ME:  Well, you weren't chief when we signed up six months ago, so it wouldn't be in your e-mails.

CHIEF:  I meant the certificates of completion of the courses.  Did you send those?

ME:  No, the . . .

CHIEF: If you didn't send them to me, how will I know if she did the courses.

ME:  Well, the super--

CHIEF:  You need to send me the certificates and I am not seeing any e-mail from you.

ME:  It wouldn't be from me, the supervisor . . .

CHIEF:  No e-mail from you.

ME:  Can I talk?

PAUSE

ME:  The e-mail would be from the probation supervisor.  He sent you an e-mail saying that he had them.  

CHIEF LOOKS AT E-MAIL:  Well, the standard procedure for a PTI is that you send me the certificate of completion.

ME:  That has never been my experience in the past.

CHIEF:  That's standard procedure.

MISDEMEANOR TWO:  Yeah, that's how we always do it.

CHIEF:  I'll dismiss it this time, but in the future you need to send the certificates to me.

ME:  Whatever.

MISDEMEANOR TWO:  And if you are done talking, I need my chair back.

Gil Schultz

Retired Houston Homicide Sergeant and Brazos County District Attorney Investigator Gil Schultz passed away this morning.  He had been in ill health for some time, and I had been dreading this day for a solid three years now, it seems.  It is strange how no matter how expected bad news may be, there is no adequate defense you can build against being heartbroken when it finally comes.

It is without any level of hyperbole that I can say that Gil Schultz changed my life to such a degree that I honestly would not be where I am today had it not been for him.  The influence he had on my life was leaps and bounds more profound than any other human being on earth outside of my biological family.  From my career path to where I live to very basic parts of my personality, the effect that he had on my life can not be overstated.  He was like a second father to me, and he, his wife Gay, and his sons Ron and Rick all treated me like family from the beginning.

I first met Gil in April of 1994.  I was a junior at A&M, engaged to my high school girlfriend, and working for my dad at Newman Printing Company in Bryan.  I wanted to be the District Attorney of Brazos County when I grew up and planned on going to law school in the vague and ambiguous way that kids have goals in life that they have yet to make an actual plan for achieving.  

Bill Turner, the elected District Attorney for Brazos County, came by the office to pick up some printing and my dad introduced me to him.  When Bill found out that I was at A&M and had an interest in law enforcement, he suggested that I do an academic internship with his office, working under the supervision of his investigator, Gil Schultz.  (Funny side note:  I thought Bill had said "Gail Schultz" and was surprised to find out Gil was a man when I met him.).  Bill might as well have offered me backstage passes to a Stones concert, I was so excited.

I dusted off a suit that I had worn my junior year of high school for a mock trial (it barely fit) and reported for work the next morning.  I was let into the D.A.'s Office and told where to find Gil.  When I arrived, he was sitting at his desk, reading the newspaper.

Gil in his natural habitat.

He didn't appear to notice when I walked in the door, so I knocked on the door frame.  After several additional seconds, he folded down his newspaper, looked me up and down from head to toe, and then snorted out a laugh.

He then went back to reading his newspaper.

Not knowing what to do, I just stood there like an idiot in the doorway.  Eventually, he said, "You know, you can sit down."  So I did.  He kept reading his newspaper.  I sat there, uncomfortably. 

His first words of actual conversation came to me when he said:  "This Tonya Harding lady seems like a real b*tch."  (I know I'm dating myself, but the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan Story was HUGE news at the time.)

Eventually, he put down the newspaper and he started talking to me about the job as an academic intern and what all it entailed.  It was supposed to be a semester-long program that I was going to do over the summer where I could get some college credits.  At the end of the summer, though, I didn't want to leave.  So I stayed and stayed.  Right up until the week when I moved to Houston to start law school.  I was there for over two years and they were some of the best days of my life, thanks to Gil.

Our primary job in those days was serving subpoenas.  We spent hours in the car together, hunting down witnesses for trials.  When it became apparent that I was going to be sticking around after my initial academic internship was over, Gil started treating me more or less like a junior investigator.  Because of his experience with HPD Homicide, local agencies would usually call him out to homicide scenes and autopsies (that were conducted in Bexar County back then).  When they called him, he would call me to come join him.  We spent countless hours together and I had the opportunity to learn so incredibly much about the insane amount of work that goes into even the simplest of murder cases.  I got to work alongside detectives in Brazos County who would become heroes to me -- Sgt. John Crenshaw, Harlan Pope, Chris Kirk, Kenny Elliott and Randy Glidewell, just to name a few.

Working alongside Gil felt like playing Robin to his Batman, and to be accepted as, I guess, "tolerable" by those guys was all I needed to know that I was on the career path that I wanted to be.  One day, Gil made an off-the-cuff remark where he referred to me as his "partner," and that's when I really felt like I had landed somewhere that I belonged.  

Gil told me about his life and times in the Houston Police Department, where he had spent 26 years, starting in 1960.  He'd spent ten years in patrol, where he had done everything from guarding the parade route for John F. Kennedy on November 21, 1963, to standing guard at the stage when the Beatles played at the Sam Houston Coliseum.  Years later, I found an old Houston Chronicle photograph where an annoyed Officer G.C. Schultz stood with his arms crossed and his back to the stage as John, Paul, George, and Ringo played in the background.  His favorite celebrity moment was guarding the Monkees, however.  He really loved those guys -- something I always thought was funny.

He told me of his days in Houston Homicide, working with the best detectives in business and trying cases with Legends of the Game like Johnny Holmes, Rusty Hardin, Lyn McClellan, and others who were prosecuting.  He was particularly close with Rusty, who by 1994 was a legend of the defense world.  He took great pride in telling me that he knew Rusty when he was a prosecutor.  He talked about him all the time.  I love Rusty Hardin for many reasons, but the main one is that he was so very kind to Gil and stayed in touch with him all the way to the end.  Rusty and Lyn had been the prosecutors on the Campbell murder case, which was later the subject of two books:  Daddy's Girl and Cold Kill.

As much as Gil taught me about investigations and the criminal justice system, he taught me far more about life.  In my early days, I tried to bond with him by discussing my impressive amount of knowledge of television procedural cop dramas like NYPD Blue.  He waved off that topic quickly, saying, "I don't watch shows like that.  I get enough sadness at work.  I like musicals."  And man, did he like musicals.  He was known to belt out show tunes in the office at random moments and the radio in our Crowne Vic never saw heard a song written past 1950 if he was driving.  He kept Disney collectibles and other souvenirs that had absolutely nothing to do with homicide and law enforcement.  His constant refrain was, "Do what makes you happy and if something stops making you happy, stop doing it."

Almost every interaction I watched him make, he led with a joke -- whether it be with a judge, a defense attorney, a witness or a suspect.  He operated under the philosophy that a joke was an icebreaker that was appropriate in any situation -- the cornier, the better.  I can't tell you how many times we went to a restaurant where he followed the waiter or waitress's greeting with, "I am Gil and this is Murray and we will be your customers today."  That's who he was.   As a police officer, he obviously had a gun, but I don't think I ever saw him carry it on more than a handful of occasions.  His happy demeanor got him so much further in life than a weapon ever would.

And the practical jokes.  Oh man.  If you learn nothing else from this post, learn to never engage with a Houston Police Officer in a practical joke war -- the more bathroom-oriented, the better.   I once tried to one-up Gil in a practical joke war and ended up riding in the passenger seat with the window locked in the down position during a monsoon.  The stories he told of the practical joke wars from his HPD Homicide days were nothing short of legendary.  Most of them not repeatable!

He became like a second father to me and we were inseparable.  I was never all that involved in college life at A&M because I had found the place where I wanted to be, working at the D.A.'s Office.  At one point, another academic intern made the comment, "You have to be the only senior at A&M whose best friend is retired."  I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Ed Ziegler, Gil and me at my A&M graduation

The strongest advice that Gil ever gave me would ultimately change my life plans completely.  He knew I wanted to be the Brazos County D.A. someday, but he was steadfast that, "first you have got to be a Harris County D.A."  That didn't mesh well with my plans to marry my high school sweetheart and settle down in B/CS, but he was adamant.  He loved Houston.  The restaurants.  The sports.  Memorial Park. He loved everything about Houston and the people in the criminal justice system.  The cops were the best.  The judges were the best.  The defense attorneys were the best.  But most importantly, the prosecutors were the best.  

"You can always come back to Bryan," he said.  "But first, you have to be a Harris County prosecutor."

So I did, and everything he said was 100% accurate.  I love this city like he did.  I love the criminal justice system like he did.  I loved being a prosecutor and I loved how proud he was of me for being one.  

My favorite moment of my prosecutorial career would bring things full circle with Gil's career.  Of all the people he spoke of from his days in Houston, he spoke of his old Homicide partner, Sgt. Paul Motard, the most.  He wanted to introduce me to him, and after all of the stories I had heard about Motard, I wanted to meet him, too.  But running into Motard during all of the trips that Gil and I made to Houston just never seemed to happen.  Every time we came to town, Motard was either busy at a scene, testifying, or on vacation.  I started to think he was a figment of Gil's imagination.

I joined the Harris County D.A.'s Office in 1999. In 2003 or 2004, I was assigned to the 185th District Court.  As I was familiarizing myself with the files, I realized that the first three murder cases that I had set for trial were with Motard and his partner C.P. "Abbey" Abbondandolo (which I still can't spell without double-checking 20 years later).  I felt as excited as a kid who just got his driver's license.  Gil was excited too, and those guys were freaking amazing to work with.  I was honored to get to work with them and I'm even more honored to call them my friends.  When Motard retired, Gil came to town for the celebration, and we took this picture together.  Words can't begin to describe how much I love this picture from that day.

When I was a prosecutor, I didn't travel to Bryan that often, but when I did, I would go see him, and we talked on the phone quite a bit.  He would come to visit Houston on occasion, and he was always intently interested in what was going on in my life.  Even years after I had left Brazos County, I still called and involved him in all of the milestones of my life.  He knew my family.  He knew all my wives.  He knew my kids.  He was my family.

And, God bless him, the man never changed.

A couple of years ago, I got a phone call from him one December.  I answered it and he immediately asked me if I was okay.

"Yeah," I said, surprised by his question.  "Why wouldn't I be?"

"I just got this Christmas card and some fat guy is standing in there with your family.  I was wondering what they did with you."

I could fill a book with stories about Gilbert and the lessons I learned from him.  From learning how NOT to become your job.  To loyalty to friends and co-workers.  To humility.  Every once in a while, I'll reflect on what an awkward and shy kid I was when I walked into his office in April of 1994.  I doubt anyone who knows me now would recognize who I was back then.  I'm not sure that I do.  

I'm still a few years away from being the age that Gil was when I first met him.  I've definitely had some adventures down the path he persistently urged me to take.  It is no exaggeration to say I wouldn't be where I am or who I am without him.  I wouldn't trade that for the world.

I've had many amazing friends and co-workers in my lifetime and I count my blessings for that.  

But there was only one Gil Schultz.

When his health began to fail him a few years ago, I told him countless times how much I loved him and what an unequaled and wonderful influence he was on my life.  I don't think I ever was able to express it adequately enough.  I'm glad he isn't suffering anymore.  

I will miss him with all of my heart.