Fun with Kimbra (and the Hoopers)

Man, it has been a crazy day.  Where to begin?  I think I'll start with a certain tweet that I got mentioned in on Twitter (or X, or whatever they are calling it these days) by a certain disgruntled ex-District Attorney.

Now, before I give the backstory on this Tweet, I would like to be very clear that I found it to be absolutely hilarious.  I am keenly aware of how much I piss off certain people online and I have a pretty thick skin when it comes to the responses to things I say.  Kim calling me a cockroach, although not very inventive, was more than fair game.

That being said, in the space of one Tweet, our former District Attorney not only calls for my death, but, as per usual, she's trying to outsource the dirty work.

Do I think she was serious?  No.

Do I think she would be sad if I died?  Also no.

Do I think I would have had a bunch of cops at my door if I had posted anything remotely resembling a tweet like this about her? 100%

But there is a big difference between me and Kim.  The most profound one being that I'm not stupid.  I don't wish death on anyone and even if I did, I wouldn't put it in a tweet.  I don't care how frustrated I was with the person.  There are too many unstable people out there already to make pretending to be one of them seem like a good idea.  

The next difference between me and Kimbra is that I wouldn't try to waste the legal system's time and resources to help me satisfy a personal grudge.  It was suggested to me that I should file a police report.  That's not really my style.  Instead, I just responded to her tweet as follows:

Do I think that I'm funny?  Well, obviously.

But going back to that whole "not wasting legal system's time and resources to help me satisfy a personal grudge" thing, I think it is worth noting my original post that got Kim so riled up.   

Backstory time.

So, as many of you may remember during the Ogg Administration, Kim led a highly publicized "investigation" into Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo.  Although charges were never brought against Hidalgo, three staffers were ultimately charged with felonies.  Two of those staffers had their cases dismissed outright once the case was taken over by the Texas Attorney General's Office, and the third completed a very brief pre-trial diversion.   When all was said and done, Kim's "investigation" into Hidalgo cost Harris County hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not more).

The recipient of lots of those thousands and thousands of dollar was none other than Kim's close personal friend and former-5th Amendment-invoking-prosecutor, Rachel Palmer Hooper, who had gone onto bigger and better things working for a big law firm and serving as General Counsel to the Texas GOP.  In her spare time, she was known for running the criminal history of black people she saw voting and other fun Right Wing activities.  Kim hired Rachel as a "special prosecutor" to investigate Hidalgo, but she did everything in her power to keep that a secret from the general public.  Since Kim was a Democrat trying to take out another Democrat, it wasn't a good idea to be using office funds to hire the general counsel for the Republicans to do the dirty work.   The story didn't end well for Kimbra.

Although Rachel blocks me on Twitter because I keep pointing out to the general public that I really don't feel that she is being the best version of herself that she can be, she has been very vocal lately.  That's probably because her beloved husband, Donald P. Hooper, is running to be the Party Chair for GOP in Harris County.  

Now, those of you who have followed this blog for a long time know that the Donner and I have a special relationship.  It's very much a love/hate relationship in the sense that he hates me and I love how much he hates me.  He would probably be very surprised to know that I think he would be perfect for the job of Harris County GOP Chair.  That's not a compliment.  It's just a testament to how badly the GOP has deteriorated.  If you are looking for a homophobic, shit talking, semi-literate, nimwit, Don is definitely the candidate for you.

But I digress . . . 

So, anyway, several days ago, Rachel posted on Twitter that she believed U.S. Senator John Cornyn needed to be investigated for something or other involving Senate Candidate Wesley Hunt's personal information.  Her solution to the problem?  They should just appoint Kim Ogg as the new, permanent U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas.

Now, I'm not entirely sure who the "Marxist DA" is that Rachel is referencing in this post, but I did find her advocating for Kim to be as predictable as it was shameless.  And I said so.

Little did I know that it would cause Kimbra's mind to turn to MURDER!

Obviously I don't feel particularly at risk after Kim's solicitation of murder upon me, but in all seriousness, what the hell?  

Kim Ogg is a vindictive child with the temperament of a slow-witted rattlesnake.  She abused her power as Harris County District Attorney and she doubtlessly would do so again if (God forbid) she were to become the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District.  She's as stupid as she is ruthless, and that's saying something.  

Regardless of whether or not her tweet was meant to be taken seriously, she has demonstrated yet again that she is not fit to hold public office.

Why It Is Time for Kim Ogg to Go

I‘m always amused when I see my name attached to the label of "Frequent Ogg Critic" in articles where I comment on Kim Ogg's job performance as Harris County District Attorney.  I am quick to point out that I didn't start out as a critic of hers -- quite the opposite, actually.  I voted for her in 2016 and I was public about my support for her, much to the disapproval of a lot of my friends.

My criticisms of Kim have been earned over the years and they've all been based on what I've seen her do in her professional capacity.  It isn't personal.  It's not like she ran over my dog or prosecuted a beloved family member.

Dane "Dudegoggles" Schiller, Anna "She Persisted" Carpenter, Joe "How Dare You?" Stinebaker and the other assorted members of her campaign team who receive taxpayer salaries to spin for Kim like to tell reporters that they should remember that I'm a "twice-fired, disgruntled Republican ex-prosecutor" any time I'm quoted in the news.   But that description is dishonest.  I was fired by Ken Magidson at the behest of incoming D.A. Pat Lykos for some things written in the comments on my blog disparaging Lykos.  It had nothing to do with my job performance, and my beef was with Ken and Lykos.  Kim Ogg had nothing to do with my departure from my office.  

I was certainly disgruntled towards Pat Lykos for a great many years and I wasn't shy about expressing that on this blog.  That being said, the way Kim Ogg has dismantled the Harris County District Attorney's Office has made Pat Lykos look like Atticus Finch by comparison.  

And that's saying something.  I never thought I'd miss the stability and integrity of the Lykos regime.

As far as me being a Republican, I will admit that prior to the arrival of Donald Trump, I voted mostly for Republican candidates and in Republican primaries.  But, I think the Right Wing crazies on Twitter will more than attest that I don't align with today's Republican values by any stretch of the imagination.  

Kim's credentials as a Republican are far stronger than mine ever were.

So, where exactly did Kim Ogg lose my support?  It wasn't one single thing.  Here are the highlights of the things that Kim Ogg has done to prove that she's the worst District Attorney that Harris County has ever elected.

1.  The firing of 40 experienced prosecutors (see Bloody Friday - December 17, 2016)

Some people start off on the wrong foot, but Kim Ogg took that to new extremes before she even took Office. Prior to taking over, she let approximately 40 senior, experienced and skilled trial-proven prosecutors know that their contracts would not be renewed when she took office on January 1, 2017.

There had been rumors swirling that Pat Lykos had passed on advice to Kim that her biggest mistake when she was D.A. was not firing more people who might be disloyal to her.  Lykos had made the foolish decision to keep prosecutors who knew what they were doing despite their political allegiances and that had cost her the election in 2012.  Kim took that advice to heart and then some when she chose fealty over public safety by getting rid of the vast majority of senior prosecutors.  

Quite frankly, her first misstep was the one that was most detrimental to the Office.  In the 8 years since, the Office has lost case after case and made poor decision after poor decision because there was very little experience there to guide it.  Ogg has spent the entirety of that time blaming everyone but herself for those failures -- from the jurors, to the Defense Bar, or, most prominently, the Judges.

This would be akin to a new owner taking over the Houston Texans and firing Demeco Ryans, C.J. Stroud, Tank Dell, Will Anderson, and the entire starting line ups on both sides of the ball . . . and then blaming the referees for a not winning games.

2.  Using the Media to Make Allegations She Couldn't Back up in the Courtroom (see Victims, Phone Calls and Press Conferences -- December 20, 2016)

Ogg was still over a week away from taking office when she gave the public a very strong preview of how she planned to handle her administration when she called a press conference to denounce some of those same prosecutors she had decided to let go and threaten them with legal prosecution for what she perceived as them disparaging her.  

In the wake of their impending termination, many of the senior prosecutors let the families of victims on their cases know that they would be leaving the Office.  This is, without question, the professional and caring thing for a prosecutor to do.  Victims and victims' families can become very reliant on prosecutors over the months (and sometimes years) that a case pends through the court system and good prosecutors actually care a lot of about those people too.  I haven't been a prosecutor for over fifteen years now and I still stay in touch with many victims and victims' families from my time in the Office.  

The departing prosecutors let these families know that new people were taking over their cases, which was 100% the classy and right thing to do.  And Kim Ogg was so offended by it that she held a press conference, threatening those prosecutors with investigation and possible prosecution, which was as absurd as it was paranoid.  

Sadly, Ogg's paranoia and penchant for press conferences have not decreased over the years.

3.  Playing Games with the David Temple Case (see Kim Ogg and the David Temple Decision -- January 3, 2017 & The One Woman Review Team -- January 6, 2017)

Kim Ogg hadn't even unpacked in her new office when she made it clear that one of her new top priorities would be personally reviewing the David Temple case and deciding whether or not the D.A.'s Office would retry it.   As you may recall, Temple had been granted a new trial after having been convicted of murdering his pregnant wife, Belinda, with a shotgun.  Temple attorneys Dick DeGuerin and Paul Looney hosted fundraisers from Kim Ogg and two of her new employees, Steve Clappart and John Denholm had been actively involved in trying to pin Belinda's murder on a group of teens in the Katy area.  She had multiple conflicts of interest in making a decision on the future of that case.

Rather than recuse herself and her office, she held onto it -- first announcing that she would head a review team on the case, and subsequently announcing that she would be the sole decider on it.  Community pressure in the press and from a certain blog eventually led her to recuse herself, fortunately, but not before a lot of sleepless nights from Belinda Lucas' family.  This case alone should make any critical thinker laugh out loud whenever Ogg announces she does her jobs for the victims of violent crime.  She was looking for any possible way to dismiss the case as a favor to her political backers.

David Temple would go on to be tried again by the Attorney General's Office with prosecutors Lisa Tanner and Bill Turner.  He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison -- again -- for the murder of his pregnant wife.  Coincidentally, Kim Ogg ultimately fired every prosecutor who worked for the District Attorney's Office that ever handled the Temple case through the appellate process.

4.  County Kickbacks for Friends and Supporters

Some of those prosecutors who did not have their contracts renewed chose to file unemployment claims against the county.  That's not really an unusual thing and it has never been anything that I've been aware of the County pushing back on . . . until Kim Ogg came along.  Ogg made the executive decision to fight the claims. 

Rather than use the District Attorney's Office General Counsel or perhaps the County Attorney's Office to handle such a non-criminal matter, Ogg retained her close personal friend, Katherine Mize, an employment lawyer and Ogg Campaign Donor to fight it.  In doing so, she used Asset Forfeiture funds from the District Attorney's Office to pay Mize $425 an hour to fight the claims.  That's a hell of a lot more money per hour than any county employee gets, and I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Mize's bill probably ended up costing more than just paying out the unemployment claim.  In this case, we got the worst of both worlds -- not only did Mize get paid a ridiculous amount to fight the unemployment claim, she lost the case.  So the unemployment claim got paid out anyway.

It still pays to be friends with Kim Ogg.  Mize repaid that generosity by being a significant donor to Ogg's campaign and even appeared in one of her commercials.  She is still routinely used to "consult" on Ogg's Human Resource matters and to date has billed the county over six figures.

Just this week, the Houston Chronicle revealed that Ogg diverted over $175,000 to her friend (and Texas GOP General Counsel Rachel Palmer Hooper to investigate Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo's Office.  That's a pretty sweet gig if you are Palmer-Hooper, the former-5th Amendment-taking-prosecutor and partner at Baker Hostetler.  Not only is she bringing in six figures for her law firm, she's also been handed the prosecutorial power to go after a controversial Democratic figure head that all of the Republicans love to hate -- all paid for with public funds! Palmer-Hooper probably hadn't been that excited since she launched a criminal investigation into a black man trying to vote!

5.  Her Personal Battle with the Houston Police Department (see Kim Ogg's War with HPD -- February 27, 2018)

Despite Kim Ogg's recent unauthorized use of Houston Police Department Chief Troy Finner's picture in one of her campaign ads, the relationship between Ogg and HPD has been a complicated one over the years.  

The highlight of her volatile relationship with Houston's Finest hit a low point in February of 2018 when Ogg decided to temporarily revoke HPD's access to the Consolidated Criminal History Database after getting into a spat with the HPD Union.  

It's always good to see your elected District Attorney put her petty grievance contributing to a lack of information shared amongst law enforcement.  If anybody thinks that Ogg is a friend of law enforcement, they should refresh their memory.

6.  The Firing of Tom Berg & Andrew Smith (see The Mad Queen -- May 14, 2019 & A Tale of Two Firings -- November 14, 2019)

One of the reasons I didn't write off Kim Ogg completely after she fired so many prosecutors before taking office was that there were some very good people that she brought in at the same time.  

Sadly, they didn’t seem to last very long.  Tom Berg was (and remains) a highly respected lawyer in the criminal law world although he largely seemed to be in the Federal arena prior to coming to the D.A.'s Office as 1st Assistant under Ogg when she first took office.  Additionally, Berg was a combat veteran who was known to be extremely intelligent and fair-minded.  His position as 1st Assistant was a promising sign that Ogg was going to run a well-managed ship.  As those prosecutors that had escaped Ogg's initial round of firings began quitting due to low morale, Berg tried to rally the troops and get them to stay.  

He then made the fatal mistake of disagreeing with Ogg on an issue and she fired him on the spot.  It was yet another example of Kim Ogg's legendary temper self-sabotaging her own Administration.  

A few months later, Ogg would also fire Andrew Smith, a longtime prosecutor who was very well-liked and respected by both prosecutors and the defense bar.  Smith had relayed to a defense attorney that Ogg had stated to him that a different prosecutor's firing had been based on who that prosecutor was married to.  When Ogg found out this information had been shared, she demanded that Smith put on the record that he had been lying when he conveyed that information to the defense attorney.  Smith refused because, you know, that would be perjury.  So Ogg fired him as well.

7.  The Death Chart Inquisition (see Kim Ogg's Pandemic Witch Hunt -- April 17, 2020 & Texas Monthly's The Hunt for a Leaker at the Harris County District Attorney's Office -- May 15, 2020)

Lots of craziness was going on in the early stages of the Corona Epidemic and the Harris County Criminal Justice World was absolutely struggling to stay on top of everything as courts were closing, trials were stopping, arrests kept coming in, and the jails were trying to balance public safety against further spreading a deadly disease.  The word "chaos" would be a massive understatement.

In the middle of it all, those experienced and dedicated line prosecutors who had thus far survived Kim Ogg's firing wrath were trying to keep the System afloat in the individual courts that they were in charge of.  As all of this was going on, an upper administration employee created an attendance chart to document how the employees of HCDA were fairing against the virus.  One of the options on the chart encouraged supervisors to notify the Office if anyone had called in dead.  Since most people in the Criminal Justice World tend to have a strong sense of Gallows' Humor, most people found this to be hilarious.

A poorly made screenshot of the "death chart" began making the rounds of prosecutors' text messages and it soon leaked outside of the Office.  People had a good laugh over how dumb of an idea of having a "death chart" was, but it wasn't anything too damaging to the Office's reputation.  Everyone thought it was funny.

Everyone except for Kim Ogg, that is.  With prosecutors and investigators working via laptop and cell phone while quarantining and trying to manage an unprecedented crisis, Kim Ogg had one priority and that was to identify whoever had initiated this innocuous joke.  She diverted resources away from managing that Covid crisis to hunt down her senior prosecutors -- demanding their office computers and attempting to strong-arm them into turning over their personal cell phones.  Ultimately, she would lose around eight or nine more senior Felony District Court chiefs from the already hemorrhaging Office, right at the time when the CJC needed their leadership the most.  

Once again, Ogg hurt her own office in the name of her ego.  Funny side story:  the author of the Texas Monthly article later told me that he figured I must have been embellishing when he first read my blog post about the Death Chart Inquisition and that he couldn't believe it when he found out it was all true.

Full Disclosure: I got a pretty awesome new law partner out of the deal, so it wasn't all bad.

8.  The Scapegoating of the Judges (see Scapegoating the Judges -- August 14, 2021 & Kim Ogg blames the Judges . . . yet again -- August 6, 2022)

I'll be the first to admit that being a prosecutor was an easier job when I was there for a lot of reasons.  We had better leadership.  We had better training.  We also had a field of judges who were almost exclusively ex-prosecutors.  Prior to around 2008, most judges had taken the bench straight from the D.A.'s Office.  Rulings went our way on pretty much any debatable issue and the punishments were high.  Being a prosecutor in Harris County during those years definitely meant having the home-field advantage.  That's just a fact.

Now most judges on the bench have both prosecutorial and defense experience and generally, the judges are more open-minded on issues that previously would have been no-brainers to rule for the State.  That's how it is supposed to be if we actually care about our Constitutional principles.  

But a neutral judiciary is not as conducive to convictions as it used to be, especially not when the District Attorney has run off the most experienced trial prosecutors.  The Office's win/loss ratio plummeted and politician Ogg had to find something to blame that wasn't herself.  The Code of Judicial Conduct prohibits judges from commenting on cases or responding to the vast majority of Ogg's criticism, so she knew that she could safely punch at them without them being able to punch back.

And punch away, she did.  

Kim Ogg made it very clear that a fair judge was a bad judge, and she attacked them at every turn.  Whether she was having her "community outreach team" post under pseudonyms on social media to privately attack them, or giving CrimeStoppers hundreds of thousands of dollars so that her old friend Andy Kahan could attack them on Fox 26's Breaking Bond, Kim urged her Republican allies to hold the judges accountable for her Office's failings.

Under Kim Ogg's leadership, the Office has made it very clear that it has no interest in a fair trial and they blast the judges that hold them accountable to the high Burden of Proof that they are supposed to meet in each and every case.  It's no wonder why Ogg is so well known for trying her cases in the media rather than in the courtroom.  

9.  Political Prosecuting for Publicity (see Raps, Rides, and Kim Ogg's Campaign by Indictment Policy - September 15, 2020)

The most frightening thing about Kim Ogg as District Attorney, without question, has been her use of prosecutorial power to file charges against people to court public approval.  She has done it since the beginning of her tenure as District Attorney and she continues to do it to this day.  Whether it being filing ridiculously over-inflated criminal charges against the Arkema corporation, trying to indict as many police officers as humanly possible that could be even tangentially related to the notorious Harding Street, a respected doctor who gave a Covid vaccination to his family when no one else wanted one, or anyone who works for County Judge Lina Hidalgo, Kim Ogg has shown time and again that if an indictment will get her some positive press, she's going to seek it -- regardless of whether or not the evidence is there to support it.

Sadly, that plan seems to work for her in the public relations realm and nowhere has that been more evident than in her investigation into Hidalgo.  Hidalgo is definitely a controversial figure in Harris County politics and is the lightning rod target of the displaced Republican community.  As noted above, Ogg employed hardcore Republican operative Rachel Palmer-Hooper to investigate Hidalgo's office (although she Ogg kept Palmer-Hooper's involvement shrouded in secrecy for years).   Between leaking search warrants to the Republican State Senator Paul Bettencourt and the media, Ogg is milking the good vibes of going after Hidalgo for all they are worth. 

But if one were to take a closer look at these highly publicized charges that Ogg's District Attorney's Office has obtained, they might notice something missing from them all -- final convictions.

Dan Cogdell and Rusty Hardin and company handed the District Attorney's Office its proverbial ass in the Arkema case with directed verdicts (which, for the layman means that the cases were so weak that the judge directed the jury to find the accused not guilty).  The Gokal case was no billed by a Grand Jury.  The other cases, Ogg has steadfastly avoided trial on, so as not to suffer the same humiliation that she received during Arkema.  Even the notorious case of Gerald Goines and the Harding Street Raid has now pended over five years without a trial and the cases against the Hidalgo staffers has no trial date set.  

Ogg's Office has played to the lynch mob mentality of making accusations that they can't prove.  That may work in the comments section of the internet, but that's not how we do things in a court of law -- especially not when people's lives hang in the balance.

10.  The Destruction of the Harris County District Attorney's Office

For better or worse, the Harris County District Attorney's Office used to have the reputation of being one of the most formidable offices in the State and the Country.   It was an office staffed from bottom to top with prosecutors that knew what they were doing in trial and were trusted by their supervisors to do the right thing in how they handled their cases.  Prosecutors knew their cases and took the righteous ones to trial and dismissed the ones that they knew they couldn't prove.  As long as you made your decisions for the right reasons, you didn't have to worry about your job.

Kim Ogg has turned that idea on its head and the Office has cratered because of that.  From starting her tenure by firing forty experienced prosecutors to running off countless more over the past eight years, she's run off scores of talented trial lawyers and leaders from that Office.  She's also created a culture of fear that those prosecutors who remain are afraid that dismissing a case (no matter how weak it is) could get them fired.  As a result, plenty of non-trialworthy cases are going to trial and the District Attorney's Office is suffering Not Guilty verdict after Not Guilty verdict.

Not to sound like too much of an Old Timer, but when I worked for the District Attorney's Office in the late-90s/early 2000s, the conviction rate at trial was well over 90%.  Now it is barely over 50%.  

Courtesy of Jeff Ross' Show Me the Justice

Regardless of your views of the Criminal Justice System, that statistic should worry you.  A Not Guilty verdict means one of two things in the vast majority of cases:  Either 1) the prosecution failed to prove a case that they should have been able to; or 2) the prosecution took a case to trial that they shouldn't have.  Neither one of those scenarios is a good one.  

Contrary to popular belief, defense attorneys such as myself don't relish the idea of inexperienced prosecutors who don't make good decisions.  Sure, it might make a trial easier, but overall it makes our jobs harder.  Prosecutors who don't understand the law and procedure, or (worse) are too scared of the repercussions for dismissing a crappy case end up prolonging cases unnecessarily for our clients.  The same principle applies to negotiating cases with prosecutors that don’t have enough trial experience when assessing a plea bargain offer.  

In short, anyone involved in the realm of Criminal Justice will tell you that there is nothing more beneficial to the system than a good, smart, experienced, and ethical prosecutor.  The line prosecutor who goes to court to represent the State of Texas on a daily basis has the power to truly to promote Justice.  Kim Ogg has eroded that for Harris County and she has done so in a shockingly short amount of time.

Her time needs to be over and it needs to be over now.

All in all, my thoughts on Kim Ogg are quite simple:  she's out of control and she has been since day one.  She isn't there to serve justice.  She's there to make sure that justice serves her.  She is unethical.  She is a fool.  She is corrupt.  She has destroyed the Harris County District Attorney's Office from within.

And it is long past time for her to go.

Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them*

*All apologies to former Senator and Saturday Night Live alum Al Franken, who wrote a great book with this title.  It just fit so perfectly for the topic of this article that I couldn't resist copying it.  I love Al Franken so if this ever gets back to him, I hope he isn't mad.

So, remember back in June when I wrote this post?

The short-ish version of what it covered was this:

A year or so ago, Kim Ogg used taxpayer money to hire Mark Goldberg as an Assistant District Attorney, a politically connected former City Councilman who Ogg had gone to law school with.  He spent a very brief stint in Misdemeanor before being "promoted" to upper management at the office as a "community outreach committee member."  What this actually means is that Ogg hired somebody with taxpayer funds to prosecute, but then reassigned him to plan events designed to get her reelected.  Not that it will matter to voters, but some of us find that to be really illegal.

As part of his job as a fake prosecutor Community Outreach Committee Member, Goldberg quickly became the Sycophant in Chief and planned great events for his candidate District Attorney.  In late June, an e-mail went out from Ogg to all of her prosecutors telling them that they were looking for "volunteers" to help her royal Oggness out at a political event that was thinly disguised as a "voter registration event." The e-mail stated that Ogg would be speaking and all attendees would be the recipients of a "food giveaway."  The e-mail strongly suggested that those prosecutors who failed to "volunteer" would have it negatively reflected in their evaluations.  Not that it will matter to voters, but some of us find that to be really illegal, too.

A copy of that e-mail ended up in my hands and I tweeted it, noting my thoughts on it.  It got retweeted and eventually picked up some media attention.  Since a public servant demanding that the public servants she supervises perform political tasks for her benefit is illegal and the media was paying attention, Ogg was caught in a bit of an awkward situation.  What is an unscrupulous politician to do?

Well, of course, she had to feed the Sycophant in Chief to the wolves.  

Shortly after the media caught wind of Ogg's illegal orders, dutiful Mark Goldberg sent out an e-mail claiming that the Ogg e-mail had been a mistake-riddled "draft" of an e-mail he, himself,  had written and somehow inadvertently sent from Ogg's e-mail.  Still trying to figure out who they thought would actually buy that bullshit story version of events.  Seriously, I have represented some really dimwitted folks who have come up with FAR better stories than that one to explain themselves when caught redhanded. 

Anyhoo, the Office doubled down on just how mistake-filled the Oggberg e-mail had been when office flak Dane Schiller apparently told Houston Chronicle reporter Samantha Ketterer that Ogg wasn't even scheduled to speak at the event as originally stated.  

So as usual, Kim Ogg and her upper Administration pulled some really dirty stuff, denied they did it, and then waited for the attention to pass -- which it promptly did.

It did, that is, until local defense attorney and former prosecutor Nathan Hennigan decided to hit the District Attorney's Office with a request for Public Information for the e-mails surrounding the event.  Ogg spent the past four months fighting the release of those records to Nathan.  Ultimately, he received some really interesting documents and he was kind enough to share them with me and some other folks.  They are wildly entertaining to read in relation to the Ogg e-mail, the Goldberg retraction, and the apparent message from D.A. Spokesman Schiller.

Let's take a look!

1.  Starting with Goldberg's e-mail that the e-mail was just a draft that was unapproved by Ogg.

2.  Continuing on, with Goldberg's statement that it wasn't supposed to be sent under Ogg's name.

3.  And as to whether or not Ogg was going to speak or not?  The D.A.'s Office said this back then . . . 

But the records indicate . . . 

Why do you even lie about something like that?  It makes no sense.  I guess when lying becomes so second nature to you, you stop paying attention to whether or not you are even benefitting from it any longer.

The sad fact of the matter is that literally not one thing here will matter to voters who will almost certainly re-elect Kim Ogg on November 3rd.  It's not because she's good at her job.  It's just because Harris County is firmly a Democratic county for the time being and the lightning rod that is Donald Trump is not going to help matters much for Republican candidates.

Kim Ogg is terrible at her job, actually.  And she lacks the character to hold the Office.  Mark Goldberg's lying e-mails to the entire office don't speak too highly of his character, either.  And lying to the media about such seemingly inconsequential matters as to whether or not somebody is going to speak to a crowd for five minutes?   What's the point?

For an organization tasked with fighting for truth and justice, the Harris County District Attorney's Office sure doesn't seem to know much about truth.

Shopping with D.A. Kim

After wrapping up her insanely huge waste of time weeks-long inquisition into finding what prosecutors might be mocking her behind her back (which landed her in an excellent article in Texas Monthly written by Michael Hardy, in case you haven't seen it), Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg has apparently found herself getting bored by the pandemic.

I mean, sure, the Judges, the Defense Bar, the Prosecutors, and Law Enforcement are all working long hours to figure out the complicated balancing act between public safety and Constitutional rights, but Kim is a multi-tasker.  She's got time to oppose PR bonds, give three press conferences, and hunt down disloyal prosecutors like the dogs that they are, all before noon!  Press Conference Kim has got so much time on her hands that she feels like doing a little shopping.

Today, I was greatly amused to receive an e-mail from "DA Kim Ogg" entitled "Continued Support for Local Businesses."

To be fair, the e-mail came from Ogg's campaign e-mail account and not her official government e-mail address (the one she used when she was sending out an office-wide e-mail telling her subordinates who they needed to vote for in the State Bar election).  However, the e-mail did arrive at 10:23 a.m., which was when the rest of the prosecutors at the Office were busily dealing with a healthy Monday morning docket.  That's interesting timing, because clearly the e-mail was nothing more than a rather lame campaign stunt and it was definitely being sent during work hours.

In the e-mail, the artist-formerly-known-as-Press-Conference-Kim has apparently switched titles to Chamber-of-Commerce-Kim, as she encourages the reader to please consider shopping locally, noting her "campaign's initiative to support small local businesses."

Some may wonder,"What exactly does a District Attorney have to do with starting an initiative to support small local businesses?"  Well, I've done the research, and it turns out the answer to that question is "nothing."  However, far be it from Chamber-of-Commerce-Kim to pass up an opportunity to use her "DA" title to encourage people to specifically shop at three of her preferred stores.

"DA Kim" gives a shoutout to The Harmonious Kitchen (which,  I believe would be a creative way to describe the exact opposite of the D.A.'s Office's current workplace atmosphere), Vincent Ford's Custom Men's Apparel (um, okay), and Pizzitola's BBQ (which DA Kim notes "has the best ribs in Houston!  Don't believe me?  Go give them a try!").   I'm not saying anything negative about these places, but Kim's awkward endorsements have kind of given me a case of the giggles.  Like, now I have this visual image of Kim staring awkwardly into the camera and yelling that "Harris County D.A. saves you money!!!" as she jumps in the air with a handful of currency.

I don't think there is necessarily anything illegal or particularly wrong with Kim hawking products like Snoop Dog selling Hot Pockets . . . 

(And yes, this is apparently a real thing.)

. . . but it just feels a little unseemly, doesn't it?  Especially when she refers to herself as "DA Kim Ogg" in her advertisement's signature?

All of this, of course, has inspired me to think of other Kim Ogg-worthy commercials:

"Got a loud co-worker in the next room that's always yelling at people about them not knowing when she takes her lunch hour?  Try Kim Ogg Earplugs.  They are fit for a King.  A Vivian King."

"First Assistant being a little too argumentative with you over the right thing to do?  Try Berg-Be-Gone in an aerosol can.  One spray and he'll be out of your office faster than Andrew Smith refusing to commit perjury for you.  Now in unscented!"

"Ungrateful police officers using your data bases while complaining about you to the media?  Never again!  With the Joe Gamaldi Data Blocker, you can shut down these ungrateful data moochers until they get their attitudes adjusted.  No Justice?  No problem, with the Joe Gamaldi Data Blocker."

"Disruptive prosecutors talking about you behind your back?  Try the Bark Internet Monitor for Parents.  It will tell you what's really going on with your employees' personal cell phones and computers."

"Got former employees suing you for a couple of thousand dollars for wrongful termination and/or unemployment?  Give the Mize Law Firm a call.  Tell her Kim sent you!"

I could literally do this all day, but I've got to go.  I've been eating too much Pizzitola BBQ and don't fit in any of my old suits anymore.  I'm going to give Vincent Ford a call for some custom men's apparel and then start working on my diet with the Harmonious Kitchen.

The 2020 Race for District Attorney Heats Up, Already

Houston Chronicle reporter Zach Despart sent out a Tweet this evening that has Harris County prosecutors abuzz:

Despart noted that attorney Audia Jones has filed a Notice of Treasurer in the 2020 race for District Attorney.  Jones, who recently left the Harris County District Attorney's Office, has been very vocal on her Facebook page about her vision for the Criminal Justice System.  Her posts have also been critical of the D.A.'s Office's current administration.

Jones is married to 180th District Court Judge DaSean Jones, who just took office on January 1st of this year.  In the event that Jones were to win the race for District Attorney, there would probably be some question as to whether or not her husband could preside over cases prosecuted by the District Attorney's Office.  In all honesty, I'm not sure what the answer to that question would be.

While Audia Jones is the first one to definitely throw her hat in the ring to run for District Attorney (I'm not sure that Kim Ogg has even formally announced that she is running again), there have been rumors that former prosecutor Rachel Palmer Hooper is mulling over a run as the Republican candidate.  That's largely based on this Tweet from last month:

Rachel is sounding like somebody who is getting ready to make a run.  She's been in the Civil World for some time now, but who knows?  Maybe she misses the excitement of the Criminal Justice System.

Quite frankly, I think that any candidate running for Harris County D.A. as a Republican in 2020 is just throwing his or her money in the toilet.  After the bashing that Republicans took in 2018, that's going to be a fool's errand if Trump is still at the top of the ballot in 2020.  Although straight-ticket voting is (fortunately) now a thing of the past in Texas, I don't know if the change will be enough to make up those margins.  I expect that the "protest turnout" of voters who show up just to vote against Trump will remain extremely high and that doesn't bode well for any candidate running as an R in 2020.

On the plus side, I think that most smart candidates know this.  I'm expecting a pretty quiet Republican Primary.  Hopefully, it will be so quiet that no one will feel all that compelled to "buy ads" from sleazy Slate producers like Terry Lowry and Steven Hotze. 

I think that if anyone has a chance to win as a Republican candidate for District Attorney in 2020, it would need to be someone that would appeal to Latino and Latina voters.  The Republican Party has been rather alienating to those voters in the Trump Era and if the Republicans were smart, they would start trying to build some bridges to that community instead of burning them.  A charismatic, qualified, and experienced Latina candidate would be ideal in that situation, and if I were leading the Harris County Republican Party, I would be working overtime to recruit someone that matched that description.

But where could they ever find a candidate like that?

Stay tuned, folks.  2020 is already getting interesting.

A Personnel Problem

My, how times have changed.

Back in the summer of 1998, I was between my 2nd and 3rd year of law school at the University of Houston.  That's roughly the academic time in a law student's life when the big law firms start coming to campus to do interviews with students.  Nervous law students hoping and praying to get hired on with one of those White-Shoe firms wear the same damn suit for days in a row as they talk to all of the legal powerhouses from around the city, state or country.  There is a notable increase in the general level of stress around the school.

In many ways, it was like league dating.  If you wanted to even get an interview with one of the top-tier firms, then your grades needed to reflect that you were a top-tier student.  Some of the smaller firms were a little looser with their standards.  I remember hating that time of law school because all of my normally laid-back friends suddenly became hyperactive stress monkeys.

For me, it was a little less stressful.  I didn't want to get on with a big firm (and with my grades, that feeling was mutual).  I had one place and one place only that I wanted to work:

The Harris County District Attorney's Office.

That was it.  No backup plan.  No safety net.  They were the best in the State.  They were the best in the Country.  They were the best in the World.

I applied for one of the coveted "pre-commit" spots with the Office.  If you received one of those, you had a guaranteed job with them that you held while waiting for your Bar Exam results.  It was job security provided that you passed.

My interview was with Julian Ramirez and Donna Goode.  Julian was fresh off of securing the death penalty on a case where a Houston police officer had been murdered, and I felt like I was in the presence of a celebrity.  I interviewed.  I thought it went well.

Back then, after an interview with the Office, you received a letter several days later that told you either: a) congratulations! You're invited to be a Pre-Commit; b) Thanks for your application, but we aren't offering you a Pre-Commit spot, please re-apply once you pass the Bar; and c) Thanks for your interest, but we don't feel you would be a good match for our office.

I got the "b" option.  Although I thought my interview went well, I wasn't entirely surprised that I wasn't getting a Pre-Commit slot.  My grades weren't exactly terrific.  Although I was mildly disappointed, I wasn't deterred.  I wasn't giving up.

I finished school a semester early (shocking, I know).  It was by design.  I wanted to take the February 1999 Bar Exam because it was the last one before the State Bar was adding the dreaded "Federal Income Tax" portion to the exam.  The prospect of dealing with that scared the hell out of me.   I spent all of January and February of 1999 at every bar preparation class that BARBRI had to offer.  In retrospect, if I had studied as hard during the rest of law school as I did during those two months, those White-Shoe firms might have actually been interested.

The last day of the bar exam was February 25, 1999.  I finished and drove straight home to Bryan.  The lease on my apartment ran out three days later, and for the next three to four months, I was a 26-year-old, engaged, law school graduate, living with his mommy and daddy.  It paints an attractive picture, I know.

But I still had my eye on that prize.  I was just biding my time and waiting for that second shot at applying with Harris County.  I worked as a law clerk for the Brazos County Attorney's Office for five (count 'em, 5) dollars an hour, trying cases and waiting on those Bar Results.  When I learned I passed, I applied again within the next business day.

I had my (second) first interview with Maria McAnulty at 201 Fannin.  She told me at the end of the interview that she would be referring me to the full Hiring Committee.  I was giddy.  A few weeks later, I was grilled by the grumpy old men of the hiring committee, and I couldn't have been more nervous.

Much to my relief, a week or so later I received a phone call from then-1st Assistant-later-Judge Don Stricklin, offering me the job.  I accepted on the spot and told him I'd be there in two weeks.  He told me that I didn't have to be there that quickly, but I assured him that it was no problem.  I'd been waiting for so long to work at that Office that I didn't want to wait an unnecessary moment.

Honestly, I don't know that I ever worked so hard to achieve something in my entire life.

I bring all of this up now in response to seeing this today on Twitter.

The job that aspiring prosecutors once had to work so hard to get is now actively seeking new employees.  Apparently, so many prosecutors are leaving the Office now that they are beginning to find themselves in a bit of a desperate situation.  They can't say that I didn't warn them.  The problem remains personnel and internal politics.

Over the course of the summer, three highly respected and senior Felony District Court Chiefs departed the Office for the Feds.  Off the top of my head, I can think of at least two other District Court Chiefs who departed earlier in the year.  For those of you unfamiliar with the hierarchy of the Office, a District Court Chief is someone who has attained the level of experience within the Office to manage a felony court.  They are the ones who have the experience to try death penalty cases.  It is a reward position that honors experience and hard work.  Most prosecutors who achieve that position are considered to be career prosecutors.

Senior Felony Twos (those who are on the cusp of becoming chief) are leaving as well.  One departing Two told me that she was leaving because she was a lawyer and an adult and wasn't going to spend her career being treated the way the Office was currently treating prosecutors.  

Earlier this week, a recently promoted Felony Chief turned in her two-week notice, leaving Harris County to go work for the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office as a Felony Two.  To put this in perspective, pretend that you are in the Army and you just got promoted to General.  You then resign from the Army to go work for the Marines as a Sergeant.  It's kind of like that and with an accompanying pay cut.

I have to admit that I'm not all that surprised by this current rate of attrition.  When Kim Ogg took over as D.A. and immediately fired 38 senior prosecutors, she pretty much made it clear that she valued loyalty to her over experience.  Is she starting to realize what a mistake that was?

From what I've heard, the Office is trying to offer some incentives to get people to stay.  They are now giving badges to prosecutors on their 3-year-anniversary with the Office (it was four years back in my day).  I've also heard that they are looking into providing free parking for people who have been there for three years (as opposed to when you make Chief).  

Those are nice gestures, but I remain convinced that if the Ogg Administration truly wants to stop losing experienced prosecutors, Kim needs to restructure her upper-echelons.  The current situation that her rank and file are working in is miserable enough post-Hurricane Harvey.  She can still make a change in the way she treats her people.  Being a Harris County Prosecutor is still something that can be one of the best jobs on Earth.  Retaining good, experienced prosecutors drastically reduces your chances of hiring a convicted felon as a new recruit.

I remain hopeful that Kim Ogg will realize that it isn't too late for her to turn this bus around.  She can still have an office that upholds the platform that she wants as District Attorney and back it up with a formidable squad of experienced trial prosecutors.  She just has to stop running off good people.

Just a Suggestion . . .

Dear D.A. Ogg,

Would you please please please make an office roster that is up-to-date and available on the Harris County D.A. Website?  Those of us in the Defense Bar are doing what we can to reach out to prosecutors off docket, but the people keep moving around.

A nice page added to the website that just stays current with everyone's assignment would be super duper helpful.  If you add e-mail hyperlinks to everyone's name, that would be super cool, too, but I'm not being greedy.

If you could get this up and running as soon as possible, I will be your best friend.

Thanks in advance,
Murray Newman

Kim Ogg's Ever-Shifting Standards for Recusal

The Houston Chronicle had a "breaking story" today that the Harris County District Attorney's Office under Kim Ogg was recusing itself from the ultra-high publicity capital murder trial of Shannon Miles for the murder of Harris County Sheriff's Deputy Darren Goforth.  Although the story may have been "breaking" news to the intrepid reporters of the Chronicle, the recusal was old news around the CJC and had been mentioned a couple of times here on the blog (in the comments).

The reason for the recusal was because Chief of Staff, Vivian King, had previously represented one or more witnesses involved in the case, including Miles' mother.

That's a relatively removed relationship to the case for Ogg to pull the plug, especially in comparison to her steadfast refusal to recuse the Office from the David Temple case.  The logic to recuse the Office from a case because a staff member represented a potential witness on the case versus not recusing the Office when a staff member represented the actual freaking defendant defies logic.

However, Kim Ogg's ever-shifting standards do make sense, I suppose, if you look at them from her political based motivations.  She took half a million dollars from liberal financier George Soros, and he's not a fan of the death penalty.  However, Shannon Miles is accused of executing a uniformed Harris County Deputy at point blank range.  In any other jurisdiction, the elected D.A. would be chomping at the bit to announce "The State is ready." in front of a jury.  The public would and should expect that, and I guarantee you that the police expect it, as well.

From a political standpoint, Ogg finds herself between a rock and a hard place.

Therefore, it is small wonder that she played the legal equivalent of Six-Degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon while trying to find a way to weasel out of the case.  

The decision to recuse the Office from Goforth/Miles case probably is the right decision in the big scheme of things.  However, as I've noted before the appearance of impropriety in all criminal cases . . .

. . . Not just the ones that Kim Ogg finds are too politically hot to touch.

The 2016 D.A. Debate

So, I just finished watching the Harris County District Attorney candidates debate, and I had a few thoughts.

First off, with the possible exception of the Sheriff's race, this is the most important local race on the ballot in November for Harris County.   For some reason, it aired between 6:30 and 7:30 p.m. and no news network carried it -- not even Channel 2, whose own Khambrel Marshall was the moderator.  It kind of reminded me of the ending of Rocky 3, when Rocky and Apollo had a private fight that only they knew the outcome of.

I had to watch the debate via Kim Ogg's website.  Not that I'm supporting Kim, but she appeared to be the only game in town if you wanted to watch the debate online.  Dave Jennings over at Big Jolly Politics made his long-awaited return to blogging to point out that perhaps Devon didn't exactly want to maximize coverage of the debate.  I'm not sure that I entirely disagree with him.  Given the current news cycle, I actually think that it took a lot of guts to agree to a debate at the moment.

All in all, there were virtually no surprises in the debate, other than the fact that the audience was surprisingly unruly.  Both sides clearly had their supporters who seemed to be trying to outdo each other with their applause.  Disappointingly, some of Ogg's supporters began talking over Devon and yelling out things, which was extremely annoying.

Devon touted her new diversionary programs such as those for cases involving small amounts of marijuana, and prostitution.  Kim attacked systemic problems in the criminal justice system and the need to change.  I missed the closing statements due to a phone call and an overactive two-year-old, but I understand that Devon brought up some character issues with Kim.

As I've said before, Kim is a formidable candidate with some good ideas, but she diminishes them with her pandering and politicking.  Devon called her out on her politicking and she was right to do so.  If Kim would stick to her principles instead of manipulating statistics, it would make her a much more appealing candidate to me.

In the end, I doubt that the debate changed anybody's mind about the candidate they were supporting in the first place -- and I doubt that anybody who was undecided was actually watching it.

Morris Overstreet Joins the Race for Harris County District Attorney

In a somewhat unanticipated move, former Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Morris Overstreet has announced his candidacy for Harris County District Attorney on the Democratic ticket.



He will be running against defense attorney Kim Ogg in the primary.

I only know Judge Overstreet in passing, but he's always been very nice to me.  To be honest, I was unaware of all of his credentials.  I didn't realize he was a former-prosecutor and I certainly didn't know he was formerly on the Court of Criminal Appeals.  He has an extremely impressive resume and a very interesting background.

I was anticipating the primary season to be kind of quiet in 2016.  Looks like I was wrong.  Kim Ogg should be very concerned.

Kim Ogg to Run Again

I received an email today from the Kim Ogg for Harris County District Attorney campaign, stating that there would be a campaign announcement tomorrow (September 25th) at 10:00 a.m. across from the CJC.

This is not surprising news, since she pretty much confirmed that she was going to run again immediately after she lost the election for the unexpired term in 2014.

As I stated when she ran last time, Kim is a qualified candidate.  I was disappointed with some of her antics during her 2014 campaign, and I hope there will be more of a discussion of actual issues this time around.

It is worth noting that Kim had a closer margin in her race than most other Harris County Democratic candidates did in 2014.  She is definitely someone that Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson will need to take seriously on the campaign trail.  However, Devon will now be viewed as a solid incumbent with several years under her belt by November of next year.

As usual, my amateur political analysis is that this race will be decided by who the Republican and Democratic candidates for President are.  I don't see Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden inspiring Democratic voters to flock to the polls like they did for Obama in 2008.  That being said, if Donald Trump ends up as the Republican candidate, I could absolutely see the Latino community being very motivated to get out and vote against him.  I think the Latino voting bloc is the most influential segment of voters in Harris County right now.

As always, the presidential election years are always so much more interesting than the gubernatorial ones.

Kim Ogg, Attorney-Client Privilege and the McAfee Case

When a potential client first calls a lawyer on the phone or comes into his office, there is no predicting where that case will lead.  Whether it be civil, criminal, or family law, the variables are so vast that there are really only two things a lawyer can guarantee a client:  his best effort, and complete confidentiality.

The principle of Attorney-Client privilege is something that every lawyer and most non-lawyers understand.  It is a sacred principle in the legal profession and one that is held above all others.  A lawyer could arguably be forgiven more easily for doing a terrible job on a case than he could ever be for sharing privileged information.  Client communications are privileged.  Period.

How serious is the duty of Attorney-Client confidentiality?  If I were to represent a client and he fired me, I would be forbidden from turning over my file on the client to his new lawyer until I had confirmed that client's permission to do so.  It is so serious that the confidentiality begins as soon as the potential client first tells a prospective lawyer the facts of his case --  even if that client doesn't hire that lawyer, privilege exists because of communication in anticipation of hiring a lawyer.

It is so serious that the duty of Attorney-Client confidentiality survives even if the client dies.

Attorney-Client confidentiality is one of the most basic tenets of being a lawyer.

It just is.

On Saturday, May 8, 2010, a woman named Janet McAfee was shot and killed by her husband, Ken McAfee.  After killing his wife, Ken McAfee engaged in a 3 hour SWAT standoff before shooting himself in the jaw.  He would survive the injury and be charged with Janet's murder.

In the days that followed, it would come to be revealed that Janet McAfee had been in the process of divorcing Ken.  According to a Houston Chronicle article, she had filed for divorce in March 2010.  In the same article, it is mentioned that at some point, Janet had attempted to become legal guardian of her husband, Ken.  That information was shared with the Chronicle by Janet's former lawyer, Jack Ogg.

Now, right off the bat, there is something suspect about a murder victim's former attorney giving information to the press about the nature of his representation.  In my opinion, that seems like a breach of Attorney-Client confidentiality right there.  At least Ogg declines to state Janet's reasons for seeking the guardianship.

But it seems as if Ogg clearly violates Attorney-Client privilege when he begins telling unflattering information about his now-deceased former client:

"I've heard that there were threats on both sides," Ogg said.  "But that's not unusual when people are going through marital problems."

Okay, so you have a former client who was initiating legal action against her husband and said husband has now murdered your former client.  What better time to start sharing with the press that she had been making threats toward her killer?  This type of sharing is certainly not acting in the best interest of your client.  As a matter of fact, you are actually beginning to act in the interest of the man who killed her.

So what does that have to do with Kim Ogg?  Well, it gets worse.  A lot worse.

Ken McAfee's murder case landed in the 339th District Court and although he was initially appointed counsel, attorney Gerald Fry comes in on the case as retained counsel on May 13th, 2010.  On July 6, 2010, Fry files the below "Ex Parte Motion to Acquire Records," asking Judge Maria Jackson to order the Ogg Law Firm to turn over their file on their deceased former client, Janet McAfee.

Now, normally, this would be the kind of thing that any self-respecting attorney would go to war over.  Like a journalist who would go to jail in contempt of court before revealing their sources, an attorney would proudly go to jail for contempt rather than ever allow their privileged Attorney-Client communication to be turned over.

Seriously, folks.  This is a huge deal and I personally know at least two criminal defense attorneys who were willing to go to jail rather than turn over their files to another lawyer without the client's permission.

In this case, you have Gerald Fry, Ken McAfee's attorney, asking for the confidential information shared between the Ogg Law Firm (by and through its representative, Kim Ogg) and their former client Janet McAfee, the murder victim of Fry's client. 

Don't get me wrong -- there is no harm in Gerald Fry trying to get their file.  He just should have expected Kim Ogg -- Victim's Right Advocate and former CrimeStoppers head -- to tell him to go to Hell.  Even if Judge Jackson were to grant Fry's request and order the file, any self-respecting lawyer who has ever represented a client (especially one that has been murdered) would go to jail before complying with that order.  

Quite frankly, there probably would have been no chance on Earth that Judge Jackson would have ever granted Fry's Motion, if it hadn't been for the "Certificate of Conference" he included at the end of his motion.

Um, holy betrayal, Batman.

The reason that Gerald Fry was filing the Motion to Acquire records was because he had already spoken to Kim Ogg eight days earlier and she had told him that she had no objection to turning over her file on Janet McAfee.

Kim Ogg agreed to turn over a murder victim's confidential file to the attorney representing the victim's killer.  She just needed a judge to sign off on an order to cover herself.

And the order was signed and the Ogg Law Firm turned over their Attorney-Client Privileged file to the Defendant's attorney.  Whether you are the most hard core of prosecutors or the most hard core defense attorney, this breach of confidentiality is stunning and mortifying.  The information in the file was damaging to the reputation of Janet McAfee, and the defense was absolutely not entitled to it.  Neither was the prosecution.

Nobody was entitled to see the information in the Ogg Law Firm's file on Janet McAfee.  Why? It was privileged.

To her credit, Judge Jackson quickly realized that the file on Janet McAfee was not Ogg's to give.  She ordered the Defense to return the file almost immediately.  Gerald Fry complied with that order.

But why did Kim Ogg ever think it would be okay to turn over the file in the first place?  Kim Ogg is many things, but she isn't stupid.

I've learned from credible sources that despite the fact that Jack Ogg was not currently representing Janet McAfee at the time of her death, he had hopes of representing her estate in a wrongful death lawsuit against Ken McAfee.  That would explain why he took to talking to the media so quickly after the murder.  But Janet McAfee's family didn't want the Ogg Law Firm to represent the estate.  Janet had gone to high school with a lawyer and her family wanted that classmate to be the lawyer on the wrongful death case.

Probably because that classmate was Kelly Siegler.

When the Ogg Law Firm learned that they wouldn't be handling any further legal matters on behalf of the late Janet McAfee, I guess they felt safe in giving their files and communications to her killer's attorney.  It seems like a very spiteful move from where I'm sitting.

Earlier this year, Ken McAfee was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.

No thanks to Kim Ogg -- who would really appreciate your vote for District Attorney.

Where Kim Ogg Jumped the Shark

Back in September of 2013, when Kim Ogg announced her candidacy for Harris County District Attorney, I made the statement "I'm just happy that we have two candidates in the race who actually care about Criminal Justice."  I'd known Kim for years and thought highly of her and her no-nonsense approach to her job.  She was certainly a better candidate than the moronic Lloyd Oliver (whom she easily defeated in the Democratic primary) and she certainly wasn't as mean-spirited and incompetent as Pat Lykos.

Although I still planned on supporting Devon Anderson for District Attorney, I didn't think there would be too much negative to say about Kim.  I was actually looking forward to the debating of the issues the affected Harris County Criminal Justice.

There was a warning sign (at the time of Kim's announcement) that foreshadowed a dirty campaign, unfortunately.  Photos published by Dave "Big Jolly" Jennings on his website here  showed Ogg shaking hands with self-proclaimed "energy trader" (and husband of Rachel Palmer), Don Hooper -- as Palmer's attorney Clay Rawlings and former-Lykos 1st Assistant Jim Leitner smile in the background.  Why exactly would a former Republican candidate for D.A. and a self-proclaimed "Republican Activist" be at a Democrat's campaign announcement?

Despite Kim's affiliation with Hooper and Leitner, I remained optimistic that a good, clean campaign would be run.  Sadly, Kim's press conference yesterday illustrated again that politics bring out the worst in otherwise good people.

Yesterday, the Democratic candidate for D.A. decided to make intellectually dishonest attacks on the Harris County District Attorney's Office over the Office's handling of the investigation into former-HPD Homicide Sergeant Ryan Chandler.

In the interest of full disclosure, I'll tell you right now that Ryan Chandler is a good friend of mine.  His wife, Inger (formerly Hampton) Chandler is someone that I consider to be one of my best friends.  Ryan visited me in the hospital when I was recuperating from chemo, this time last year.  I was invited to their wedding and I gladly attended.  I know what has been written about Ryan ad nauseum.  He is still my friend and he is a good friend.

So, if you want to take the following with a grain of salt, feel free.

When the news of the investigation into Ryan began, District Attorney Devon Anderson recused the Office from the investigation due to the fact that Inger was an Assistant District Attorney there.  It was a no-brainer of a decision and the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office was brought in to handle the investigation.  No criminal charges were filed.

This was standard operating procedure and one that has been frequently done in other instances involving potential conflicts of interest with a prosecuting agency.  The rules were followed and the Harris County District Attorney's Office never became involved with the handling of the case.  The results were entirely out of that Office's hands.

And Kim Ogg knows that.  Yet, she decided to attempt to make a disingenuous argument in order to jump on the wave of attention that the HPD scandal is currently attracting.

As most of you probably are aware, Houston Chronicle reporter James Pinkerton (who is apparently the head of the paper's Ryan Chandler Bureau) has been writing a series of articles about the HPD Homicide Scandal.  In addition to covering the different cases involved and the people affected, Pinkerton has also covered everything from Ryan's grades in guitar class in Junior College to his high school classmates' belief that he would become a radio DJ.  The Warren Commission didn't get this much detail when they looked into Oswald.

Kim knew that all she would have to do was mention Ryan Chandler's name in a press release and Pinkerton would come running with a pen and paper in hand.  She knew that she could make the silly argument that the D.A.'s Office somehow did wrong by recusing itself and he would write the article as if it were gospel.   Kim didn't disappoint him.

"The DA has cut another backroom deal, to the benefit of a political supporter [Chandler], the romantic partner and current husband of the DA's lawyer in charge of her conviction integrity unit."

"Romantic partner and current husband"?  Ooh.  Sounds salacious.  "Backroom deal"?  Sounds dirty.

Devon Anderson removed her Office from all involvement in the case to specifically avoid any questions about the propriety of how it was being handled.  She asked a neighboring county's District Attorney to investigate.

But, wait, Kim Ogg doesn't think that Montgomery County D.A. Brett Ligon should have been the investigating Chandler, either.  Why?  Because Brett Ligon formerly worked for the HPD Police Union.  His ties to representing police officers in employment matters somehow made him an unfair investigator?

That's kind of a funny accusation coming from Kim Ogg, who also has a lengthy history of representing police officers in "employment matters" and brags of it ON HER OWN WEBSITE.  Calling Brett Ligon's integrity into question was baseless and silly.

All of this press conference from Kim Ogg is baseless and silly, too.  Kim has been practicing law since I was in junior high school.  She knows that the recusal of the Office was handled appropriately, yet she deliberately misled the Press for political advantage.

And that's a move straight out of the Pat Lykos playbook.

Kim, you're better than that.  At least, I thought you were.