Life at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas Ryan Patrick was formally sworn in during his investiture ceremony yesterday.  The Houston Chronicle 's Gabrielle Banks wrote this article describing the ceremony, which I noted was a little different from the original article she wrote about the event yesterday.  I tried to find the original article online because it had some interesting quotes from some of the Assistant U.S. Attorneys that work for Patrick, as well as some quotes from Federal judges and defense attorneys.  Unfortunately, the original version seems to be unavailable. This quote from Chief U.S. District Court Judge Lee Rosenthal did make it into the final version of the article: "He comes from a political family but his current focus is not on politics, it's on policy," Rosenthal said. "And that is how it should be as he faces intensely tactical problems of running this large and complicated office in our large and very complicated district

It was a bittersweet moment this week as judges, prosecutors and members of the defense bar gathered to say goodbye and happy retirement to longtime defense attorney and friend Ricardo Rodriguez. Ricardo has been a fixture of the Harris County Criminal Justice world for decades and was a courtroom gladiator on many notorious capital murder cases.   Tall and lanky with his signature mustache, Ricardo was someone I had seen around the courthouse for years before I actually met him in person when I was a brand new Felony Two in Judge Ted Poe's court in 2002. I didn't know my ass from a hole in the ground and I was initially extremely nervous to be in Judge Poe's court.  I was uncharacteristically quiet at first -- something that Ricardo initially interpreted as me being either stuck up or painfully shy.  He made it his personal project to get me to loosen up and we became very good friends.  I learned about his service in the Army in Vietnam and about his family in Lare