Pat Lykos’s Diversity Record
Murray Newman posts about Pat Lykos’s terrific success utter and complete failure in making the Harris County District Attorney’s Office more diverse. Not only are there not more non-white lawyers there than there were before Lykos came along, but there will also be fewer non-white lawyers in the Office a week from Friday.
My only complaint about Murray’s post is that he throws away fodder for a several other blog posts.
- The A.D.A.‘s are being told that the budget has already been expended.
- The morale within the Office continues to plummet.
- Lykos is spending a large amount of time in the basement parking garage smoking like a chimney while forcing her staff to come with her to talk business.
- The Office is hemorrhaging money having to pay for special prosecutors to handle every case where Jim Leitner or Clint Greenwood acted as defense attorneys.
- The investigator that Lykos brought in to act as her personal chauffeur for her county vehicle has apparently already wrecked said county ride.
C’mon, now, Murray. The smoking alone is worth 500 words.
If you’re one of the ADAs sending this stuff to Murray, feed it to me too.
Or instead. I won’t just throw it away.
About The Author
I’ll be more interested in his posts when he starts sounding like an angry citizen or an angry defense lawyer, not an angry twice-fired ADA who wishes he was still employed by Siegler and can’t let go of his sour grapes. I think that’s the reason he throws away the real issues, as opposed to exploring them fully.
/not a pissing match
Oh, I’ll be coming back to the other things I listed at a later date, but I was just feeling that the diversity issue was timely at the moment. The smoking in the garage is something I’m still looking into — give me a couple of days.
As for Rage’s comment, oh, hell, nevermind.
Wait. Of all the issues you and Mark listed, the one you want to come back to is the smoking one? Not diversity, inbreeding, lopsided pay scales, misues of personnel, or the other relevant issues?
Is that really what Harris County citizens should be the most upset about?
I’d ask this on your blog, but you seem to have stopped approving my posts. So, maybe you can add some substance here?
Rage, maybe he picked smoking because I picked it?
“The smoking alone is worth 500 words.”
Then I question your choice as well. But he is not limited to yours, and is free to hit bigger subjects, so I still question why he would have chosen to come back to that one.
Anyway, like I said I have a ton of issues with Harris County, but the budget running dry two weeks before the end of the fiscal year (assuming March 1 is the date) ain’t one of them. Neither is smoking, especially when a damn-near septuagenarian is doing it because she’s set in her ways like lots of old folks, so they’re bound to do it in a way that sounds odd to people our age. And neither really is diversity. I’m all for it, but I’m more for merit hiring than diversity hiring.
Like I said, there are lots of things to talk about, especially for someone decrying the wasting of posts, but smoking is the least of them.
I was tempted to explain the nuance of “The smoking alone is worth 500 words”, but explanation kills nuance, and I suspect that most readers got it.
Hey, I’ve got an idea: instead of trying to pick fights with Murray and “Arthur Seaton” here, you could do it in comments on their blogs. Better yet, you could write a blog of your own — the barriers to entry are surprisingly low!
I got your point as well. Mine is that while that may at least be worth 500 words, there are others worth more but he spends more time on the trivial than the substantive.
I’m quite honestly surprised that you’re soft pedaling his gripes. Tells me you’re more concerned with getting along with prosecutors than you are pointing out the injustices in the office. The real injustices, not just when someone has to follow Lykos for a smoke break.
Even in the face of some serious competition, Rage, that may be the dumbest blog comment of the day.
Welcome to the small but distinguished company of people who have, by their demonstrated dimness or inability to play well with others, earned moderated status here.
I’m always amused at smoking DAs because they’re addicts, though their particular drug is nicotine, but they make criminals out of addicts whose substances of choice are less politically popular. Nicotine addicts are much more wasteful precisely because they can legally leave their desks for cigarette breaks. So, I have no problem with AHCL picking smoking as the topic du jour.
This is a small part of what you’re talking about here, but it’s a pet peeve of mine: What is it that makes defense attorneys become prosecutors? Is it that they never wanted to be on the defense side in the first place and only did that to get the experience that got them hired as prosecutors? Is it just the money? I know I shouldn’t care — taxpayers end up paying for it when those traitors have to conflict out of cases and whatnot, and those of us on the defense side can just say good riddance to bad rubbish b/c if these people don’t have defense in their hearts they might as well do something else. Still…
Jim and Roger were both prosecutors before they were respected defense lawyers before they were prosecutors again. (And Roger was a judge somewhere in there as well.)
In this era of public outings of officials such as Lykos, How is it that she is getting away with it? I mean really, a special investigator to drive her around?
Perry caught heat for not not ordering DPS to publish the amounts they were spending on his security. Why is it this woman believes it alright or justified to be able to run her department in this fashion?
Rage — why don’t you start your own blog and go there.…
Mark — please, please, please file some open records requests for the pay scales of the new hires (including your favorite lateral hire). Also, if we could somehow find out how much money Lykos blew on new county cars for everyone.
If she wanted to save money — do like HPD and don’t allow take home cars. The thought of some of the hire-ups having to pay for their own gas just shocks the conscious.