The "Holding Your Nose" Conflict

Kevin Whited wrote in a comment today under my "Bradford vs. Lykos -- pt. 1" that the race for District Attorney will end up with voters feeling: "Man, talk about holding your nose and picking between the lesser of two evils. Sheesh."

As a former/current Assistant District Attorney, it is so sad for me to read that quote, yet I have a hard time disagreeing with it. Whether you were a Siegler or Leitner fan during the Republican Primary, the fact of the matter is that the voters are left with two candidates who have never been prosecutors and have no trial experience.

Now, I've stated, and I stand by the position that I will never ever ever ever cast a vote in support of Pat Lykos. To me, she illustrates everything despicable about politics, and reaffirms for me that partisan politics have absolutely no place in elections regarding criminal justice. (SIDE NOTE: If our city's mayoral election doesn't have a Republican/Democrat marking on it, why does the Justice System? Partisan politics would seem to me to have much more relevance in a mayoral race than in the one for D.A.)

I'm very conflicted, personally. I'm fully aware of the knocks against C.O. Bradford and I don't want to minimize them on this blog. That being said, I don't think that Lykos has the leadership skills to guide a prosecutor to the restroom, let alone in issues that deal with criminal justice.

Although Bradford has my vote, I fully understand that this will cause a division amongst the folks that read the blog. My goal for the rest of this election season is to promote the idea that the truth and all of the truth needs to come out on both candidates. Because even if you do have to hold your nose to vote on the race, you still need to vote. It's just too damn important not to.

I don't think it is fair that Bradford be continuously bashed over the head with the crime lab scandal and the K-Mart raid, while the Chronicle turns a blind eye to Lykos. In my opinion, Lykos' sins equal, if not outweigh anything Bradford ever did, and unlike Bradford, she doesn't have the capability to blame the sins on anyone else.

The Chronicle failed its readership during the Republican primary. I hope they don't do the same thing during the general election.

Examine your candidates and vote carefully, folks.

A Couple of Outside Takes on the D.A. Race

I ran across two pieces today on the D.A.'s race.

The first was from the Houston Press, which offered a comparison chart between Bradford and Lykos. It was actually pretty damn funny, if it weren't so sadly true. Yet again, reading the Houston Press, I become depressed that they aren't the dominant Houston newspaper, rather than the Chronicle. Their writing (although very liberal) at least looks at both sides of the issues and has insightful writing.

The other part I read was from Off the Kuff in an article entitled "Early Overview of the DA Race". Again, dammit, I'm having a hard time isolating that particular article off the page, but scroll down and find it. It's a good article, and I agree with it whole-heartedly. The only part I question is that I thought it was documented somewhere that C.O. Bradford was waaaaaaaay ahead in the fundraising department (but I could be wrong about that).

Anyway, it is worth the read.

Polling Polling Polling

The Chronicle's website has released an article detailing some sample polling on the D.A.'s race. The article is already in the advance Sunday edition of the paper, and will be in the regular paper tomorrow. It details several races and the Obama phenomenon that has resulted in so many early votes in the Democrat's primary. (NOTE: I'll address that issue after the Primaries).

The bottom line information on the D.A.'s race states:

Among the voters in the survey who are likely to cast ballots in the Republican primary, 21 percent chose Siegler, 14 percent Lykos, 7 percent Perry and 6 percent Leitner.

Now, every since I was young enough to understand what a poll was, I've been hearing people say that they "didn't trust polls". I can't say that I've ever sworn by them, but they tend to generally get the picture correct, if they are done right.

But this one is a little strange.

First of all, I've got to question the validity, or value, I guess, of a poll that leaves 52% of the vote up in the air.

And I'm stunned that Leitner would be coming in behind Perry. The fact that Perry is even running in this race is a complete farce. I tried to be polite regarding his misguided idea to run for office, but this is just absurd. The man cites his record for trying traffic ticket cases as his trial ability, for Pete's sake! This is really an insult to Jim, but it clearly illustrates what the problem has been with the Leitner campaign from the start: name recognition.

Lykos has 14% of the vote, and Kelly has 21%.

With so much up in the air, can one side win the election without a run off? The article doesn't seem to think so, although it is certainly mathematically possible.

But here's the part that I don't get. The Siegler campaign has been walking neighborhoods and meeting Republican voters in the top voting precincts, and they've gone by literally thousands and thousands of households, meeting hundreds and hundreds of people (NOTE: People aren't always home).

Based on the unofficial polling from this group, there been right around an 85% - 90% percent positive response to Kelly's campaign.

What does that mean? I don't know. I know my polling wasn't anything official.

Maybe it means Lykos, Leitner, and Perry supporters are more likely to spend their weekend days out of the house than Siegler supporters.

Or maybe it just means that we'll all have to wait for March 4th to get a real idea about how Harris County really feels about the race.

Houston Bar Association Qualifications Polls

The HBA released its results yesterday from the Judicial Candidate Qualification Poll. All of the results are interesting, as always, and I encourage you to read them all BEFORE voting.

Obviously, I'm most interested in the D.A.'s race, so here are those results. I've listed them in ascending order of the candidates who received the most well qualified votes.

5.Poor Doug Perry - didn't fare so well. 499 voters said he was not qualified. 67 voters said he was qualified. Only 18 voters said he was well qualified for the job of District Attorney.

4. Pat Lykos - yep, she got edged out by even Bradford on this. 527 voters said she was not qualified (damn, that's even more than Perry). 363 voters said she was qualified. 291 voters said she was well qualified for the job of District Attorney.

3. Clarence Bradford - the only Dem in the race had 537 voters who said he was not qualified (the most "not qualified" votes of any other candidate). 170 voters said he was qualified. 296 voters said he was "well qualified". (In a related story, local attorney Lloyd Kelley voted 295 times in this poll. Just kidding.)

2. Jim Leitner - the respect for Jim showed in this poll. Only 182 voters said that Jim was not qualified to be D.A. (which is the lowest amount of people who said that about any of the candidates). 342 voters said that he was qualified. And 380 voters said that Jim was well qualified for the job.

1. Kelly Siegler - Kelly had 525 voters that said she was not qualified (a high number, but not as high as either Lykos or Bradford). 284 voters who said she was qualified. And 475 voters who said she was well qualified. That's 95 votes higher than the next highest candidate.


Republican voters, are you starting to get an idea of what the legal community thinks of Pat Lykos yet?

WTF? - Part I

Damn, I hate the Houston Chronicle. I mean, I know they have always been as biased as my mother at my 5th grade spelling bee, but I mean - - well, damn.

Alan Bernstein wrote a puff piece for this morning's otherwise uneventful edition. Four separate articles on each of the four Republican candidates (I tried to find the link for y'all, but can't find it on the web for some reason. Mark, if you can find it for me, could you post it in the comments?)
At least, it starts off as a puff piece, but what it ends up being is three puff pieces on Lykos, Leitner, and Perry (the Chronicle may still acknowledge him as a candidate, but I don't) and a hatchet-job on Kelly Siegler.

I suppose that the Chronicle editors may have finally realized that stretching out the "nuts and screwballs" comment slowly over four weeks has gotten to be old news. (NOTE TO EDITORS: It was old news about three and a half weeks ago). And Lisa Falkenberg's article on Canadians had played out (which I guess happens when you do an article on something that Fox 26 broke two and a half weeks earlier). So they went looking more dirt on Kelly.

And they found it. But not until they 1) looked into her prosecutorial past for about twenty years, and 2) interviewed the president of her fan club: Dick DeGuerin.

Now let's look at this crap:

Apparently when Kelly was a misdemeanor prosecutor twenty years ago, she used the term "Jew" as a verb. The article points out that she didn't know what it meant, and went to the extra-ordinary step of actually going to the home of an offended juror and personally apologizing.

Now, everybody who is reading this board knows that the difference of knowledge and experience levels between a Baby Misdemeanor Prosecutor and a Bureau Chief could fill volumes. If I recall correctly from office folklore (and Kelly's inspirational talks at prosecutor training sessions), this is somebody who didn't win a lot of trials when she first started out. She worked her butt off to become the best prosecutor in the Office, the State, and the Country.

My point is that the Chronicle and Bernstein are absolutely ridiculous point shows that their zeal against the Office has hit new levels -- very low levels. To write such cheesy puff pieces about Lykos ("I was a charm school dropout" hee hee hee), Leitner ("I shaved my moustache") and Perry ("the tall candidate does often look the lawman part"), and then use Kelly's article to continue the smearing is just poor journalism.

Oh but wait, we aren't quite done yet. I haven't mentioned the Dick DeGuerin source. I can't link to the article, but here's what it says:

"After Siegler's recent prosecution of David Mark Temple in the 1999 killing of his pregnant wife, defense lawyer Dick DeDuerin's unsuccessful request for a new trial noted that she told law students that she regularly made remarks to juries that she knew judges would find out bounds."

So our in-depth background research was getting handed a copy of the Temple Motion for New Trial, Bernstein? Did you not do the follow up investigation into, oh, I don't know, common legal practices, which would have taught you that what is alleged in a Motion isn't evidence. I just point that out because you seem to site the Motion as some sort of proof.

And all it really is is DeGuerin stating: "It sucks that I lost my trial. I want a new one. Kelly must have cheated. I heard that she tells people she cheats."

Give me a break.

I know that there are plenty of people who read my posts on this website that don't support Kelly, and that's fine. But at least y'all will have rational discussions with me over the merits of her candidacy, as well as the candidacies of everyone else in the race (except Perry).

The Chronicle does it's readers a disservice by failing to analyze Kelly as a serious candidate when all they do is blast her with anecdotal stories.

But, then again, I've always kind of felt that the Chronicle did it's readers a disservice by existing.

NOTE: WTF? - Pt. II will be written after I eat breakfast.

Perception vs. Reality

Ever heard the saying that "perception is reality"? I think most of us have, and right now it's a phrase being repeated over and over again around the CJC. Most prosecutors right now would probably like to take the author of that statement out back and shoot him.

What kind of inspired me to write this particular post this fine Saturday morning was after reading Leviathan's post about the D.A. candidates and their baggage on Mark Bennett's blog. Leviathan is one of the more witty and rational posters on both this blog and Mark's, and he or she makes a very witty post with this one. His conclusion is an endorsement of Jim Leitner as his or her selection for who should be the D.A.

You aren't ever going to catch me saying anything bad about Jim Leitner, because I think he is one of the most honorable, humble, skilled, and decent attorneys I've ever met in my life. You aren't going to catch any of the ADAs saying anything bad about him either, because they feel the same way. But, I do have an issue with all this ranting about Kelly's "baggage", and how this so-called "baggage" should prohibit her from Office.

The Defense Bar battles against "perception" every day of a client's case. There is a a perception of guilt from the time of arrest that we have to vocally defend against. There is a perception of guilt when our client is sitting at a counsel table when the jury files in, and that's where our battle really become a full-fledged war, isn't it? And fighting against the perception of guilt is the credo of our jobs, isn't it? Because the reality is that all persons accused are innocent until proven guilty.

Sometimes to get to reality, you have to prove that the perception is bullshit, don't you? Even when the fundamental principle of the criminal justice system is the exact opposite of that.

So, let's examine some perceptions and realities that have been thrown around lately.

Perception # 1 - The D.A.'s Office harbors a racist attitude and this is clearly proven by the fact that Chuck had two racially offensive e-mails on his computer, and that Mike Trent sent the "Canadians" e-mail.

Reality - Three e-mails are linked to two prosecutors (three prosecutors, if you listen to Trent's eager "I heard it from Freyer!" mantra. Something tells me Trent won't be on Freyer's Christmas card list this year). Yes, Chuck's e-mails (especially the "overdose" one) were grossly inappropriate and have no place on anybody's computer, especially not an elected official's. But how does that translate to the other 200+ prosecutors at the Office?

Jolanda Jones keeps talking about racist A.D.A.'s who offer African -American defendants higher plea bargain recommendations than white defendants.

Really? That's terrible.

And surely, Ms. Jones, you have been calling a press conference every time this has happened this happened to you. Surely, as a competent attorney diligently representing your client, you brought this to the Court's attention every time this type of injustice happened. Surely, Ms. Jones, you have successfully Batson challenged every prosecutor for a racially motivated strike, and have hundreds or thousands of incidents that you can cite where the trial court, or a Court of Criminal Appeals backed you up on this.

Surely, Ms. Jones, you aren't just jumping on the "ADAs are racist" bandwagon because it's fashionable right now. A newly-elected city councilwoman such as yourself wouldn't ever do something like that for political purposes, would she?



Perception # 2 - Kelly Siegler was part of Chuck Rosenthal's inner-circle who complacently allowed all of his bad acts to continue without saying a word. Thus, she is not a good candidate for District Attorney.

Reality - It is true that Kelly has been a prosecutor for the District Attorney's Office for over 20 years now. She served under Johnny Holmes, and subsequently Chuck Rosenthal. When Holmes left office at the end of 2000, she was a felony Chief. Under Rosenthal's administration, she's been promoted to Bureau Chief of Special Crimes, which specializes in the investigation and trying of "Cold Cases". She isn't his First Assistant. She isn't his General Counsel. More importantly, she's not his Chief Investigator.

If you want to know who is really in Rosenthal's "inner-circle", ask around the courthouse. It's an extremely small circle.


The lumping in of Kelly with Chuck is nothing more than a political smear on her. As a former/current/retired prosecutor, or whoever the hell I am these days, let me state one thing clearly about being a prosecutor:


A prosecutor's loyalty is to your job description, not your elected official. Not a damn one of those prosecutors gets up every morning and goes to the courthouse to please Chuck Rosenthal. They get up to do a job that they love.

Punishing Kelly Siegler because she's been a prosecutor for so long, and because of the fact that she's risen to the level of Bureau Chief is insane. That makes her more qualified to be the D.A., not less. Those who would want you to believe otherwise would probably like to have the D.A.'s Office abolished in general.

Perception # 3 - Bringing in an outsider like Pat Lykos will restore integrity to the D.A.'s Office, and that will be for the best.

Reality - You know who else could have restored integrity to the D.A.'s Office if he were still alive? Late children's TV host Mr. Rodgers. He was such a sweet, dignified man.

Too bad he didn't know anything about the functioning of the D.A.'s Office, either. Has anyone else noticed that Republican "It" Girl, Pat Lykos has yet to challenge either Kelly or Jim Leitner to a debate on any of the real issues facing the Criminal Justice System? Why do you think that is? Could it be because that to do so would be to clearly illustrate her lack of understanding of what we do every day down there? Hit all three candidates (I'm no longer acknowledging Doug Perry as a candidate) with substantive questions and watch her crumble.

Here's my challenge to my readers: Write in your comments substantive questions that you believe ought to be posed to the D.A. candidates. I mean real ones. Not political ones. Not ones like "Kelly, how do you remove the stench of Chuck Rosenthal from the Office?"

I mean ones like this: "Should 12.44(b) be more utilized in crack pipe residue cases where the Defendant is a first offender, and an otherwise poor candidate for probation?" or "Should the Office's use of pre-trial diversion become more common-place for non-violent first offenders?"

I would humbly suggest to my readers that if you start asking substantive questions, you will cut through more of the bullshit perceptions about the CJC and get down to the Reality, which should be true Justice.

Just a thought.

Why I'm Concerned About Writing

In George Orwell's 1984, the author coined the term "Big Brother is watching you." At least, I always heard that's where the term came from, but in the interest of full disclosure, I never read the book. And it's always been my understanding that Big Brother was the government. (NOTE: I'm basing the remainder of my article on my above-listed understanding of the book. If my understanding is wrong, I'm really going to look like a dumb ass, here.)

Well, Big Brother is watching now, and the effects are being felt even by non-lawyers. In Peggy O'Hare's article this afternoon, she wrote the following statement:

In court papers filed Monday, (Lloyd) Kelley gave a list of people he plans to call to the witness stand, including Rosenthal; prosecutor and Republican DA candidate Kelly Siegler; Siegler's husband, Dr. Sam Siegler; Rosenthal's executive assistant Kerry Stevens; his chief investigator John Ray Harrison; his political consultant Allen Blakemore; and prosecutor Mike Trent.

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't this lawsuit start over an issue with the Sheriff's Office? Now, I've got absolutely nothing to do with this law suit, and God knows I'm glad for that. I don't pretend to have the inner-understanding that the parties involved do (LOOSELY TRANSLATED: "Please nobody subpoena me."), but I'm having a hard time seeing how all these folks are getting roped into a case involving the Sheriff's Office, when none of them seem to work for the HCSO. Chuck subpoenaed? Maybe. But the rest? And can somebody explain to me how in HELL Sam Siegler got involved in this mess?

I just don't get it. I don't understand what the criteria is before your private matters become public.

And that scares me.

I'm hearing horror stories about more and more open records requests hitting the D.A.'s Office every day. Of course, the natural inclination is to say "Well, if they didn't write anything bad, then they don't have anything to worry about."

I guess, but do you remember when the Rosenthal e-mails were first posted on KHOU.com? I, like thousands of other people, clicked on the link that showed the e-mails, and I felt sick.

The first thing on there was a personal exchange between HCDA General Counsel Scott Durfee and (I believe) his wife. Were they discussing racism? No. Were they talking law? No. They were talking about a problem their child was having with another child in school. As husbands and wives talk, they discuss their opinion of some of the other kids in the class. Nothing racist or elitist, but clearly in terms that Mr. Durfee and his wife wouldn't have shared "with the rest of the class".

That's bullshit. I don't really know Scott Durfee, except in passing, but Good Lord, can you imagine how humiliating that must have been? Where's the media discretion in releasing that to the masses? And how did it get out there anyway? I just don't get it. That wasn't fair.

And what exactly is it about that law that lets Kelley get Sam Siegler's e-mails? I mean, I can see the stuff acquired through Rosenthal's account being fair game, but subpoenaing Siegler's stuff? And calling him into court as well? Whatever you believe about Kelly's husband from media reports, does that really sit well with the general public that personal e-mails are that up for grabs?

I know that Kelly Siegler put herself in the public spotlight when she decided to run for D.A., so I'm not expecting to find a wave of sympathy for her in regards to that, but damn, that woman has gone under some intense scrutiny that doesn't seem to have been focused on any of the other candidates. I'm not a political person, myself, and after watching all of the scrutiny she's gone under, I will never even think of running for office.

I'm not saying I'd even make a good candidate in a theoretical election, but think about this: how many excellent candidates do get run off from the idea of even running because they don't want their whole life under such scrutiny?

Even the prettiest picture doesn't look good under a microscope.

My concerns about posting aren't because I think the message isn't worth discussing. It's because I don't want the hell that seems to now come along with speaking your mind.

And by the way, it is just my mind that I'm speaking. My thoughts and beliefs in no way speak for criminal lawyers, whether they be defense or prosecution, or anybody else for that matter.

Pat McCann's Questions

In his editorial piece today, Pat McCann wrote that the following questions are ones that need to be addressed by whoever becomes District Attorney in 2009. Before I list them, I do have to point out that I noticed he wrote:

"Republicans will have a contested primary with experienced candidates, Jim Leitner and Kelly Siegler, as well as Houston police Capt. Doug Perry and former Judge Pat Lykos."

Now, God knows that I'm no grammatical genius (just read these posts closely), but was Pat saying that Leitner and Siegler were the only "experienced" candidates? I think he was.

And I couldn't agree more.

Now, onto the questions he posed for the new D.A.:

1. Will the district attorney's office begin to work to find serious alternatives to help the mentally ill who wind up in district and county courts? My Answer: I can't see why not. The Andrea Yates case left a bad taste in the public's mouth because it looked like the D.A.'s office was ruthlessly pursuing a clearly mentally ill woman. I think this got spun a lot by the media and the issue as to whether or not she was legally insane was something much more debatable than the media did. Nevertheless, I think this is an issue to be resolved by the legislature, but I think that any good D.A. is going to back that something be done, and done quickly.

2. Will the district attorney's office continue to prosecute minor drug cases with such vehemence, clogging our dockets and wasting resources and jail space? Good question. My Answer: Show me a prosecutor who is trying a minor drug case with "vehemence" and I'll show you a rookie prosecutor. Those that have been prosecuting for a long time get tired of the infamous "crack pipe" cases, and don't know what to do with them anymore. Recent policy changes within the office have banned the use of 12.44(a) on the cases, which was at least some sort of consolation prize to those representing clients charged with them. But they are still accepting the charges like they were going out of style. One or the other has got to give before the docket becomes so unimaginable that there is a crisis created solely by the charging decisions. My suggestion on the residue cases? Class C, baby.

3. Will the new DA continue to support the serious and thorough review of the HPD lab fiasco? At this point, how could he or she not? This one is a "no brainer" for the candidates.

4. When will we see the return of genuine second chances for first-time offenders? This is the only place where I think Pat slips a little, because the question is over-broad. Should there be a second chance for first offenders on drug charges? Sure. Thefts? Absolutely? Aggravated Sexual Assault of Child or Murder? Well, let's hold on there a minute. It has been my experience that the ADA's will try to help keep a record clean if the Defendant is charged with a (more or less) minor offense, provided that the Defendant wants the same thing for himself. Too often, a Defendant will leap at the chance for a reduced amount of pen time rather than place accept a deferred adjudication with a chance to get something off of his record. Also, what, if any effect is there if the Defendant is 17 years old and has a lengthy and violent criminal history?

5. How often and when should the death penalty be sought, and at what cost? A valid question from a person who morally opposes the death penalty. I think the reality is that the change in legislation that resulted in life without the possibility of parole has led to a drastic reduction in the cases that the Office seeks the death penalty on. I think that for the Office to seek death on a Defendant now, the case has to be something that truly shocks the conscience, or the Defendant's criminal history has to be something that would scare the living crap out of the common citizen.

Great article, Pat.

The Unofficial Election Update

For those of you who are new to the blog, if you scroll all the way down, I have my unofficial poll on who should win the D.A. election in November. If you haven't voted yet, please do.

I'm very pleased to see that the two most qualified (in my opinion) candidates are the ones leading the pack. That means that the people who are reading and voting on this blog are people who know what they are talking about, and that's what I was hoping for. I'm very happy about the posts that we are getting on the website, and I hope they keep up. I'm trying to be as diligent as I can about responding to all posts, but if I inadvertently miss one, just let me know.

There was little news today on the election front, other than a fluff piece in the Chronicle about the candidate forum yesterday at the Spaghetti Warehouse. The article didn't have much substance to it, but some of the posts (which I'm morbidly addicted to reading) had some interesting stuff.

The most interesting post had to be by someone under the title of "Helpful", who wrote:

"Captain Perry's personal outreach program with the public is legendary among those who know him. I venture to say that he would bring a whole new definition to the term "public servant" as a result. If you're looking for a candidate willing to try new things, he should be at the top of your list. ;)"

I know what "Helpful" was writing about. Do you?

Oops.

Obviously nobody (other than Lloyd Kelley) knew about the e-mail scandal that would fall upon the D.A.'s office on December 27th of last year. As I've mentioned earlier, what was shaping up to be the most interesting race of the season was going to be the one for the 176th District Court. Judge Brian Rains has held that bench for longer than I care to remember, and I think prosecutors and defense attorneys alike had grown extremely weary of Rains' blatantly rude and hostile attitude toward all parties involved. And that's not to mention his extremely questionable policy of being as resistant to granting probations as he possibly could be . . .

Shawna Reagin was the first to declare that she would run against the unpopular Judge, and she announced as a Democrat. Her candidacy was extremely well received by her peers in the defense bar, who all rushed to sign the petition for her candidacy.

Fast forward to January 2, 2008, when Jim Leitner signs up as a Republican candidate for District Attorney. Again, this was also well-received by lots of people, especially the Defense Bar.

But here comes the "uh oh".

When the people signed Reagin's petition for her candidacy, they became barred from voting in the Republican Primary.

They can root for Jim Leitner in spirit, but they can't vote for him unless he makes it into the general election in November.

Candidate Leitner and the ADAs

The candidacy of Jim Leitner was an interesting story in the days leading up to the filing deadline.

Remember back two weeks ago and we were all young and naive, thinking Rosenthal was only guilty of sending romantic e-mails to his secretary? Boy, how things change. After the Republicans had officially asked Chuck to resign, and he had officially told them to kiss his butt, there was apparently quite a bit of wide-spread panic with the D.A.'s Office. Assistant District Attorneys seemed to quickly grasp what their boss did not, and that was that Chuck Rosenthal wasn't going to be the elected D.A. come January 1, 2009.

What the ADA's also realized was that nobody from their Office would dare to announce a candidacy as long as Chuck was steadfastly refusing to withdraw his name from the ballot. Their position was unenviable, because none of them were too comfortable with the idea of working for Clarence Bradford. And the person whose name came to all of their minds was Jim Leitner's. Any prosecutor who had been around the Office for over five years knew Jim and respected him. Now, they were looking for Jim to save them and their office.

I don't know how many ADAs called or contacted Jim in some way, but somehow he ended up heeding the call, and put his name into contention. Defense attorneys and prosecutors alike cheered!

Five minutes later, Rosenthal withdrew from the race, thus opening the door for Kelly Siegler to run. Now, the ADAs were internally conflicted. They knew that Jim had stood up for them in a time of need (when nobody else could), but Kelly Siegler is demi-God to the prosecutors. The prosecutors are always going to back somebody from inside the Office when given the choice, but Jim Leitner has earned a special place in their heart. Most of the prosecutors that I've talked to support Kelly wholeheartedly, but will also tell you that they would gladly work under a Leitner Administration as well.

The fly in the ointment came two days later when political opportunist and the Republican "It" Girl, Pat Lykos decided that she needed to run for something. Folks, make no mistake about it, Jared Woodfil and the local leadership of the Republican Party want Pat Lykos to win. To them, Jim is a "no name", and Kelly is too tainted by her boss' administration to be a real contender. I think prosecutors and defense attorneys alike all dread the term "District Attorney Pat Lykos".

So, what's my point? Jim and Kelly are both good candidates, and we all know that. Kelly has an edge with name recognition through her high profile trials lately. I would humbly suggest that we all, individually, pick one of them or the other and support them wholeheartedly. In other words, whether you support Jim or Kelly, get the word out that whoever ends up the candidate, it shouldn't be Lykos.

And the Hits Just Keep Coming

I'm not going to regurgitate the news of the day in detail, because odds are if you are actually reading this blog, you already know them. However, there is much to discuss, and a couple of questions I have. I'll break them down into three topics:

1. Kelly Siegler's "nuts and screwballs" comment. She's picking a death penalty jury, and she's dealing with an African-American prospective juror that she exercises a peremptory challenge on. She draws a Batson challenge, and makes a comment that offends Lakewood Church members. We all know that Batson prohibits striking a juror based on race, but should the same type of rule apply to religion? It gets a bit dicey on that topic, because a person's feelings on the death penalty are often very much tied into their religious beliefs. Would the same uproar be happening if she had made the comment about a Jehovah's Witness? Given the fact that there's no love lost between the media and the D.A.'s office these days, I'm guessing the uproar would be about the same.
The bottom line is that some religions strongly oppose the death penalty and that's going to keep them from being "death qualified" every time. My bigger question is who decided to turn over this portion of the trial transcript to the media?

2. The AG's Office is now investigating, and Chuck still isn't budging. I'm just posing this question for discussion: What, if anything, would make Chuck voluntarily resign?

3. Lots of the people posting on the Chronicle's website seem to be calling for all Assistant District Attorney's to be thrown out of the office along with Rosenthal? I don't know about y'all's experiences, but I would say that for the most part, the ADAs are pretty decent. There's always going to be a couple that will piss you off royally, but who is in the majority? The good ones or the bad ones?

That's all I've got for the moment.

Man, am I good or what?

Looks like my earlier prediction on the qualifications for who would be the next D.A. were pretty accurate. With a whopping 10 people voting on my unofficial poll, the numbers are right in line with my predictions in my earliest post! Poor Captain Perry is still waiting for that elusive first vote.

I'm ecstatic that people are actually checking out the website. I wish somebody would add a comment and let me know what you are thinking. I'm looking for topics to discuss.

There will be more on today's developments later . . .

The District Attorney's Race

Nothing draws more attention to a political race than a good old scandal, and Chuck Rosenthal is ending his political career as the District Attorney with a big one. Even as this is being written, more and more embarrassing facts seem to be coming from the County's Top Prosecutor. The looming question is what effect that this will have on the election to replace him. There are five candidates vying for the job (four Republican, one Democrat), and they seem to cover the spectrum of backgrounds.
Here's my personal assessment over who's the most qualified for the job, as well as my thoughts on their odds of winning. Consider it my own, personal Top Five List:

5. Houston Police Captain Mark Perry (Republican) - I'm not real sure where this guy came from. I've been working around the CJC (and before that at 301 San Jacinto) for quite some time now, and I'd never heard of him before he showed up Republican Headquarters and filed as a candidate. Let's assess his qualifications: he was a Captain in the jail. Not even the Harris County Jail. For those unfamiliar with the division of duties in law enforcement, a Captain at a jail doesn't do investigations and certainly doesn't do any type of trial work. He holds a law degree, which is a minimal requirement for the job of District Attorney, but other than that, I fail to see any qualifications. From my perspective, it sounds like Captain Perry filed because he was bored being retired.

ODDS OF WINNING: Compared to everyone else, he's got zero name recognition to go along with zero qualifications. That adds up to zero chances of winning, in my opinion.



4. Former Houston Police Chief Clarence Bradford (Democrat) - being the only Democrat in the race, Bradford is the only name that we are guaranteed to see on the ballot in November. He's got name recognition from his years as Chief of Police, and the Democrats like that. Unfortunately for the Dems, that name recognition comes with a lot of bad press. During his tenure at HPD, the now infamous HPD Crime Lab Scandal was born. Although it was Chuck Rosenthal who had to handle most of the fallout from HPD's problems, everyone at the courthouse knows that this problem was Bradford's child, not Chuck's. He consistently ignored warnings of problems and they all ended up coming to light after convictions had already been secured. If you couple that with disastrous K-Mart Raid (where he separated small children from their law abiding parents and then blamed it on subordinates), the incredibly high retirement package he received in his final days, and an aggravated perjury charge he went to trial on. Yes, I know there was a directed verdict from Judge Rains. He's still never set foot in a criminal court (other than as a Defendant), and knows absolutely nothing about how to try a case or run the D.A.'s office.

ODDS OF WINNING: Sadly, not too shabby. He's the only candidate on the Democratic ticket, which means he can store up his campaign money longer than the Republicans. He also has that name recognition. His biggest help will come from the straight ticket Democrats who will be backlashing against the Bush Administration, and perhaps the Rosenthal administration, as well.

3. Judge Pat Lykos (Republican) - the biggest gap between qualified candidates definitely happens between Bradford and Lykos. Lykos has over a decade of experience as a District Court Judge, so she definitely knows the inside of courtroom. She's also a career politician who has sought higher office for Texas Attorney General and Harris County District Attorney. She is also a retired Houston Police Department Homicide Detective (is it just me, or is this starting to sound like an HPD Alumni Reunion?). The one thing that she has never been is a trial lawyer. What difference does it make? you might ask. Well, it's kind of the equivalent of an NFL referee deciding that he wanted to be quarterback after he retires.

ODDS OF WINNING: Pretty decent. Lykos is a practiced and smooth politician with a lot of supporters who remember her from the days when she was judge. She was done being a judge before I became a lawyer, so my dealing with her have been few and very far between. However, the Old Timers around the courthouse recall her as petty and mean, on occasion, and known to treat her court staff and attorneys in her court, very badly. She gave Chuck a run for his money in 2000, and I wouldn't be surprised to see her in a runoff with Kelly Siegler after the March 4th primary.

2. Jim Leitner (Republican) - as the hours ticked away for the filing deadline last Wednesday, Jim bravely through his hat in to run for D.A. In doing so, he earned the admiration of prosecutors and defense attorneys alike. Jim is a highly respected and well-liked defense attorney at the courthouse, who is by both the prosecution and the defense. Most folks at the D.A.'s office are privately saying that if Kelly Siegler isn't the winner of the election, that Jim is a close second in preference. He's been a prosecutor and a defense attorney. He handles death penalty cases and every other type of case in the District Courts. People respect his ethics, judgment, and ability.

ODDS OF WINNING - Probably not as good as Lykos. In the 2000 election, he placed third in the Republican primary, behind Rosenthal and Lykos. Although well known in the criminal law circles, his name doesn't have the name recognition of Siegler and Lykos. Also, his funding may be somewhat at a disadvantage, as well. Jim filed because he didn't think Rosenthal could defeat Bradford and wanted to give voters another option. For that type of integrity, he earned admirers and gratitude. Unfortunately, that type of integrity doesn't often translate well in elections.

1. Kelly Siegler (Republican) - Harris County's most famous prosecutor didn't start off the month of December envisioning herself running for any office, let alone the one held by her boss, Chuck Rosenthal. Kelly is a trial lawyer, and an astoundingly good one at that. She does an important job on tough cases because she believes in them. She didn't really envision herself as holding the title of District Attorney. However, she is completely qualified for the job, and her dedication to it is unquestioned. She knows how to run the office and keeps close watch on those she supervises. In addition, her outgoing personality and trial ability will bring a big fan base from her co-workers, in my opinion. Although most of the defense bar does not like the idea of going to trial against her, they genuinely like her. She also serves as an excellent liaison with the law enforcement agencies in Harris County, which is a benefit to the office. There's a lot more to this MENSA member than just trial skills.

ODDS OF WINNING - Pretty good. The biggest detraction from Kelly is how much of the Rosenthal debacle is going to spill over onto her candidacy. She's the only person running from the D.A.'s office, so obviously the other ADA's are going to be behind her full throttle. If Kelly wants to win, she needs to challenge the other candidates to debates early and often. Even the polished Lykos wouldn't stand a chance in a debate against Siegler (and thinking of what Bradford would look like against Kelly gives me nightmares). Look for the ADA's, former jurors, and victims of crime to support her in the race. If people can look past the Rosenthal administration and realize Kelly is her own person, she should become the first female District Attorney of Harris County.