The Official Investigation Has Begun

As most of you all know by now, yesterday it was officially announced that Judge Susan Brown appointed Stephen St. Martin and Jim Mount as Special Prosecutors for the 185th Grand Jury.  In light of the events of the past week, it isn't too surprising of a development.

I know Stephen very well because he was my former Chief when I was in the 174th.  If you read this blog, you know that I think extremely highly of him.  He was highly respected when he was at the District Attorney's Office before leaving in May of 2009.  He worked on high profile cases and was a Special Crimes prosecutor.  He has the highest integrity and I think the General Public can rely on both him and Jim Mount to uncover any illegal acts done by the District Attorney's Office without going on a witch hunt to drum up something if there isn't anything actually there.

I don't know Jim Mount nearly as well.  He was long gone from the District Attorney's Office when I started there in 1999.  I know that he was well-liked and respected as a prosecutor.  I dealt with him some when I was a new prosecutor and he was a defense attorney, and he was always very kind to me.  I'm sure that he will do a great job as well.

The developments surrounding this investigation are still difficult to comprehend.  Regardless of what the Public thought of Chuck Rosenthal for his inexcusable e-mails, we never saw a headline that read quite like today's:

The accusations against Lykos are extremely serious because they involve the widespread prosecution of members of our community for DWI with faulty evidence that the prosecutors knew was faulty.  Furthermore, they retaliated against the person who tried to bring it to light, and then tried to bully their way into the Grand Jury to make sure the investigation was going their way.

Folks, this stuff is serious.

As the Grand Jury investigation begins today with its new Special Prosecutors, Life is going on at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center.  Despite the fact that the elected District Attorney herself said she has no faith in HPD (before hopping on a plane to Hawaii where she'll learn how to prosecute drug cases in the event she ever decides to try a case), a DWI case with B.A.T. van involvement is going to trial in Court Four.

And yes, the filing deadline for District Attorney is rapidly approaching.

Things haven't been quite this crazy around the CJC since, oh, December of 2007.

No Rest for the Weary

Just when it seems like we finally got the 2010 elections out of the way, and our newest members of the Judiciary sworn in, we are already hearing talk about the 2012 election.

As you all know, the 2008 Election swept out all but one of the Republican Incumbent Judges and replaced them with their Democratic challengers.

And, of course, 2008 also gave us Pat Lykos -- the gift that keeps on giving.

Even though we are just in 2011, and the election of 2012 is, uh, about 23 months away, speculation and announcements have already begun.  Clearly, the Republicans will be seeking to regain the benches lost, and there are rumors and innuendos flying all over the place about who is going to run for what bench.

Thus far, the only person I know who is "officially" running is Felony Chief Prosecutor Brad Hart, who has announced he will be running as a Republican for the 339th District Court.  There are very strong indications of others running as well.  You need only to look at the comments section of my previous post for that.

I have to say that I was amused that somebody posted there were only "certain courts" that the Republicans were "targeting".  Give me a break, man.  The Republicans will be targeting all of them!  That's just politics.


I imagine that whatever happens in Harris County will depend much more on what is going on in Washington than what is happening here locally -- no matter how many ads Gary Polland runs of Judge Kevin Fine's tattoos.  I have spoken to several people whom I consider to be much more knowledgeable about the Harris County political climate than I am, and I have heard them all speak with absolute certainty that their party was going to win.

In my opinion, guessing what the November 2012 election is going to turn out like has about as much chance of being accurate as predicting the 2013 Super Bowl, at this point.

Of course, the biggest question on everybody's mind (at least those who read this blog) is going to be the race for the District Attorney.  With all of the butt-kissing that Pat Lykos has gotten from the Houston Chronicle and her die-hard Blue-Haired supporters within the Republican Party, she is is probably feeling pretty invincible.

The big question on that is, will Kelly Siegler run again?

I don't know if she will or not, but I certainly hope so.   If you add up all the votes that Kelly got in the general primary and the run-off against Lykos, she crushed Lykos by thousands of votes.  My friend Black Ink seems to be pretty optimistic about the idea with this post.

If Kelly doesn't run, I'll be praying for a Mike (Anderson) Christmas (Announcement).

The bottom line is this, however -- focusing on who is going to run for what office can drive us all crazy all year.  There are so many different factors that can change between now and the filing deadline at the first of 2012.  People can announce.  More people can announce.  People can drop out.  People can change races.

It is all very entertaining to watch and learn, but absolutely impossible to predict the outcome.

My advice to you (as always) is get involved.  There will be some great candidates that deserve your support.  Don't take for granted that the rest of the public will know what you know about them.  Get politically active and let your friends and family know that you'll have recommendations and thoughts for them when it comes to voting.  Start an e-mail chain.

If you've got good candidates you support, help them campaign and raise money.

More importantly, if you know of bad candidates, run against them.  Or find somebody who will.

The election of 2008 showed us all what happens when apathy infiltrates the System.  The election of 2010 showed us what we can do when we get off our butts and work for good candidates.

My hope is that 2012 will look a lot more like 2010 than 2008 and that good candidates on both the Republican and Democratic sides of the ballot get into office.

Now, let the gossiping about who is running for what office continue . . .