Defending People

the tao of criminal-defense trial lawyering

Schmomises

As I under­stand it, the Har­ris County Com­mis­sion­ers Court has started approv­ing all DA Office hires by name. So if Pat Lykos wants to hire Joan Schmo to be a Mis­de­meanor 4, she has to get Joan’s hir­ing on the Com­mis­sion­ers Court agenda and get the court to vote on it at a monthly meeting.

Which is unfor­tu­nate for the 10–15 “pre­com­mits”—lar­val lawyers who have com­mit­ted to work­ing for the DA’s office at $12 per hour while await­ing their bar results, in exchange for the promise of an actual salary begin­ning when they pass the bar (results due at the end of this week).

Because appar­ently some­one for­got to ask the Com­mis­sion­ers Court for per­mis­sion to put these folks on salary. (This is the account I got from a senior pros­e­cu­tor; I can’t doc­u­ment it.)

So now they have to wait till Decem­ber to start mak­ing more than they would make wait­ing tables at Chili’s. (And another three months for benefits.)

Which sucks for them. Nei­ther the administration’s dis­or­ga­ni­za­tion (hey, remem­ber when Pat Lykos was the can­di­date with “admin­is­tra­tive expe­ri­ence”?) nor the nonex­is­tent legal job mar­ket jus­ti­fies the DA’s Office break­ing its promise to these kids.

I eagerly await Pat Lykos’s state­ment on who is “neg­li­gent and incom­pe­tent” this time.


I enjoy Murray’s posts—he has pro­vided a valu­able ser­vice to the com­mu­nity since he was an anony­mous pros­e­cu­tor himself—but the more I read the com­ments on his blog writ­ten by anony­mous pros­e­cu­tors (or anony­mous peo­ple hold­ing them­selves out as pros­e­cu­tors) the more cer­tain I am that they deserve Pat Lykos. Also that I just wasted another three min­utes of my life.

If, like them, I  was trem­bling with impo­tent rage but I pid­dled all over myself every time I thought about hav­ing my name asso­ci­ated with unpop­u­lar opin­ions, I would admit pub­licly that I deserved what­ever boss I wound up with.

I’m glad my community’s safety doesn’t depend on that effete bunch of craven whinge­ing circlejerkers.

Damn.

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About The Author

Mark Bennett got his letter of marque from the Supreme Court of Texas in May 1995. He is famous for having no sense of humor when it comes to totalitarianism.

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