Friends-
Do you currently live in a community where there is diversity among your county court judges? Do you live in a community where you have county court judges who have defended Individuals and that pesky stupid Constitution? Are you sick of that?
Need a change? How would you like to live in a community where All the county court judges have a law enforcement background? Imagine how lovely it would be to live in a community where you can enjoy a homogenous county court judiciary which has almost no background defending individuals?
Well, you need Look no further!!!!
Effective January, 2015, every single Harris County Court Judge will have cut their teeth locking people up for the police or the DA. That’s right, 15 out of 15 county criminal court judges have either been police officers or prosecutors. *
… Of course, our judiciary has no inherent prejudice in favor of the DAs Office; Any such suggestion is just bad manners. Our county court judiciary are all 100% fair,impartial, neutral and detached with no pro-prosecution agenda. Yes, and my name is Bugs Bunny.
Good luck- you will need it.
Robb Fickman
Houston, Texas
Harris County Criminal Courts
Judge Goodhart, Court 1
Former Harris County DA
Judge Harmon, Court 2
Former Harris County DA
Judge Fleming, Court 3
Former Harris County DA
Judge Clinton, Court 4
HPD for 30 years
Judge Harris, Court 5
Former Harris County DA
Judge Standley, Court 6
Former Harris County DA
Judge Derbyshire, Court 7
Former Harris County DA
Judge Karahan, Court 8
Former Harris County DA
Judge Wilkerson, Court 9
Interned for Harris County DA
(* only interned)
Judge Sherman Ross, Court 10 Retiring
(Judge Spjut- 27 Years HPD taking office- January 2015)
Judge Bull, Court 11
Former Harris County DA
Judge Brown, Court 12
Former Harris County DA
Judge Smyth, Court 13
Former Harris County DA
Judge Fields, Court 14
Former Harris Count DA
Judge Hughes, Court 15
Former Harris County DA
1 thought on “Wonder what the DAs would think if the Judiciary were all former staff counsel for the ACLU???”
The idea that our criminal justice system is biased against defendants (especially when they are minorities or come from disadvantaged backgrounds) is so obvious that it is laughable to suggest otherwise.
While I would hesitate to specifically accuse any of the aforementioned of bias in their rulings, the fact that all of the county judges come for a prosecutorial or police background lends itself to creating a paradigm of guilt before innocence before the bench(s) of our criminal justice system.
While a “tough on crime” mantra is great for getting elected, it is a hard position to defend when you’re asked to officiate on case after case without it biasing your rulings. For evidence, consider that rulings get harsher during election years, especially for defendants of color (see here http://home.uchicago.edu/~/kpark1/docs/Dissertation_Chapter2.pdf)
Once again it shows the flawed logic behind having local level members of the judiciary be popularly elected instead of appointed and thus insulated from the whims of the public’s reactionary and legally uneducated opinions.