Services and Remembrances for Jordan Lewis

The family and friends of Jordan Lewis have asked me to share the planned events for our friend's services and remembrances and to share their thanks for the outpouring of sympathy during this very sad time.  

Services will be tomorrow, Thursday, April 15th at 1:00 p.m. at Congregation Emanu El in Houston.

Due to Covid restrictions, there are limits to the number of people who can attend Jordan's funeral.  In-person attendees are limited to family and close friends who have been specifically invited by the family.

Jordan's family does want all of his friends to be included, however, and they have made arrangements for the services to be live-streamed.  You can find the link by clicking here.  

Additionally, there is reserved space at Kirby Ice House (3333 Eastside, Houston, TX 77098) at 1:00 p.m., where the funeral services will also be live-streamed.  Drinks and a food truck will be available and masks will be required to attend.  

Services will be ending at approximately 1:45 p.m., at which time Jordan's family will be coming to Kirby Ice House to meet with friends who were unable to attend in person.  They are looking forward to meeting with everyone there and hearing any and all stories you can share about our friend and colleague.

Plans for a scholarship that honors Jordan's legacy of service and devotion to the practice of Criminal Defense are underway.  The family asks that, in lieu of flowers, you please consider donating to that scholarship once it has become established.

Jordan Lewis

 Our Criminal Justice World was absolutely rocked today to learn of the sudden and unexpected passing of our friend and colleague, Jordan Lewis, at the age of 40.

I honestly don't even know where to begin with what I'm writing here because it seems so surreal to think that he's gone.  

He was my friend, although many knew him far better than I did.  He became a defense attorney in 2008 which was around the time I was wrapping up my career as a prosecutor, so I never dealt with him in an adversarial situation. I'm pretty sure that we first met around that time when we were both single and hanging out at Char Bar.  

Back in those days, the younger lawyers came to hang out and hear war stories from the older lawyers.  He was part of that group.  He was an extremely nice guy.  Fun to hang out with.  He was very earnest about his approach to defending clients.  He was very zealous with his ideals, but he wasn't naive about the way the System treated them.  He was very obviously the attorney who did his homework and wanted to work hard to be the best at what he did.

In the next couple of years, I remarried and had a second child, so I didn't hang out with the old guard at the Char Bar anymore.  I know Jordan got married and had two children, as well.  I didn't see him out and about socially anymore, but I'd see him at the CJC regularly and we'd always stop and talk for a minute.  

Jordan was always on the move in the profession.  As I mentioned, he did his homework and he worked hard.  He zeroed in on the laws and the procedures governing Driving While Intoxication offenses.  He challenged accepted protocols and he made a name for himself.  It seemed that in the blink of an eye, the rookie defense attorney that I met at Char was suddenly a highly respected authority in his field.  

It would have been very easy for him to keep that knowledge to himself as a very profitable source of revenue, but it was important to Jordan to pay forward what he had learned.  He was well known for being a constant resource for attorneys that had questions about anything -- from DWI to financial planning.  He was somebody who was there to help others find their way in a tricky business that he had mastered.  He gave speeches.  He answered phone calls.  He showed up in court when people needed help.

He was, without question, one of the Good Guys.

Facebook and the HCCLA Listserve have been filled today with heartbroken tributes to a good man who gave so much of himself to so many other people.  Our hearts are heavy with grief for a young father and husband with so much professional talent.  He was well-known and very loved by his CJC family and we are devastated for what his family is going through.

You will be missed, Jordan.

Lisa Falkenberg's Column on Transparency and Retaliation

There's a good article from Lisa Falkenberg in today's print edition of the Chronicle regarding the ongoing dispute between the Harris County District Attorney's Office and Amanda Culbertson, formerly of the HPD Crime Lab.  I will link to it when it comes online.

The long-story-short is that Harris County has apparently had a contract for twenty years with Lone Star College for the testing and maintenance of the instruments used to test breath test results.  Earlier this year, Amanda Culbertson told officials that the Mobile "B.A.T. vans" that have intoxilyzers in them were not reliable, thus jeopardizing numerous DWI cases where they were used.  Her findings were documented in e-mails within HPD, and defense counsel Brent Mayr had filed a Writ in March of this year alleging Brady violations for withholding that information.

Fast forward to July, when defense attorneys Dane Johnson and Jordan Lewis find themselves in trial on another B.A.T. van case, where a trial case had to be continued mid-trial when prosecutors claim that this is the first time they've heard of these allegations.  As noted in the article by the Chronicle's Brian Rogers and Anita Hassan, Amanda Culbertson stated she left the HPD Crime Lab over her reports of the B.A.T. van problems and moved to Lone Star College, where she continued in her duties for a different agency.  Rather than being the chemist for HPD, she is now doing it for Lone Star, which does the supervising of those intoxilyzers used by the Harris County Sheriff's Office and other county agencies.

Apparently incensed that Culbertson had called into question the H.P.D. cases, the County is now trying to suddenly cancel that contract with Lone Star.  You can draw your own conclusions as to whether or not that move was in response to their new employee -- Amanda Culbertson.

As Lisa points out in the article, Lykos and Crew over at the D.A.'s Office are attempting to play the "who me?" card on what has inspired the termination of the contract, acting as if this was a move made by County Commissioners without the Office's involvement.  However, this seems to fly in the face of logic under the circumstances.  At the last Commissioners' Court meeting on the subject, ADA Rachel Palmer, who is the Deputy Chief of the Misdemeanor Division (which handles the vast majority of DWI cases for the Office) was in attendance when the matter was addressed.

To top things off, there have been rumblings and threats from the D.A.'s Office about looking into whether or not they could indict Culbertson for perjury.

Lisa's column is a great one, but I think we are just hitting the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this story.

Sound a little retaliatory yet?

My friend and fellow blogger, Paul Kennedy, pointed out yesterday in his blog that he was somewhat perturbed at the rush to defend Amanda Culbertson and other members of Lone Star College by the defense bar, arguing that it gave them credibility on future cases in advance.  I understand his position, but I think at some point there may need to be a weighing of the evils involved here.

Defense attorneys standing up for a whistleblower witness that is risking her livelihood to testify about faulty evidence that affects hundreds of cases is the right thing to do, even if it means having to begrudgingly admit that you find her credible down the road.

The dangers of a District Attorney's Office that will literally go after that same whistleblowing witness like John Gotti after Sammy "the Bull" Gravano is a much more alarming proposition, in my opinion.