Defending People

the tao of criminal-defense trial lawyering

Another Dispatch From Mr. X

From my source in the Har­ris County DA’s Office, Mr. X:

From: “Jor­dan, John” <JORDAN_JOHN@dao.hctx.net>
Date: Feb­ru­ary 15, 2011 11:19:24 AM CST
To: “Mis­de­meanor Divi­sion” <MisdemeanorDivision@dao.hctx.net>
Cc: “Bridg­wa­ter, Roger” <BRIDGWATER_ROGER@dao.hctx.net>, “Evans, Cather­ine” <EVANS_CATHERINE@dao.hctx.net>
Sub­ject: Trial Competitions

We are now six weeks into the new year and I wanted to announce some Trial Competitions.

Vehic­u­lar Crimes Sec­tion Award
The first ADA to try 10 DWI jury tri­als in 2011 will win this award.  The prize….you will get to sit sec­ond chair on an Intox­i­ca­tion Manslaugh­ter or Felony Mur­der case with a pros­e­cu­tor in the Vehic­u­lar Crimes Sec­tion.  You will be involved in trial prepa­ra­tion, take wit­nesses, and par­tic­i­pate in the trial.

Trial Dawg Award
The first ADA to try 12 jury tri­als in 2011 will win this award.  The prize… you will get to sit sec­ond chair on a mur­der case with a felony chief level pros­e­cu­tor from either the Trial Bureau or one of the spe­cial­ized divi­sions, such as Major Offend­ers.  The trial record does not mat­ter, except you have to be above 50 %.

Trial Court Award
If a court tries and com­pletes THREE jury tri­als in a sin­gle week, the pros­e­cu­tors in that court can comp. out by lunch time the fol­low­ing Fri­day.  It is encour­aged that the mem­bers of the court do some­thing together….lunch, movie, bowl­ing.  Who will cover their court in their absence…keep read­ing.  The court (that has a 2 and a 3) that does not try any cases the same week the win­ning court(s) tries three cases, will have to cover the duties for the win­ning court.  If all courts , that have a 2 and a 3, try cases it will be up to Justin, Rachel, and I to cover.  We have excluded five courts from this com­pe­ti­tion for equity purposes.

The pur­pose of these com­pe­ti­tions is to reward folks who go to trial and achieve jus­tice.  In addi­tion, hope­fully it will be fun for all.  Those who have already tried mul­ti­ple cases already this year have a head start on oth­ers.  Let the friendly com­pe­ti­tion begin….

And it goes with­out say­ing, what we do is always about jus­tice.  Hope­fully this will allow us to have some fun while we strive to achieve it…..

JJ

I love that right at the end John stuck in that nod toward jus­tice, which “goes with­out say­ing.” It’s almost like he knew I’d be giv­ing him hell for turn­ing what should be very seri­ous mat­ter of free­dom, future, and rep­u­ta­tion into a frat­boy game for 25-year-olds to play to get Fri­day after­noons off. (At least he didn’t spec­ify that the tried cases should be whales, though the win­ner of the Trial Dawg Award does have to win at least six of her twelve cases, which may amount to incen­tive to try more whales.)

Morale in the DA’s Office must be in the base­ment for the Office’s man­age­ment (the word “lead­er­ship” no longer makes sense in this con­text) to have to resort to summer-camp con­tests to get its pros­e­cu­tors to try cases. Try­ing cases is work, but it is enjoy­able, edu­ca­tional, and oth­er­wise reward­ing work. It is why many crim­i­nal lawyers on both sides of the bar went to law school, and—I suspect—why many pros­e­cu­tors joined the DA’s Office in the first place.

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This entry was posted by on Tuesday, February 15th, 2011 at 8:47 pm and is filed under Harris County DA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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.

Comments

19 Responses to “Another Dispatch From Mr. X”

  1. Kirk Garner says:
    15 February 2011 at 9:52 pm

    Inter­est­ing pol­icy: I’m not sure what to think about it. One thing is sure, if there is going to be jus­tice then cases are going to have to be moved. I’ve seen too many defense lawyers who habit­u­ally delay and delay and delay in order to get favor­able treat­ment because of their self-created backlog.

    Regard­ing the Whale cases, they say that the pros­e­cu­tion should win 100% of tri­als because they get to pick which cases to try.

    Reply
    • Mark Bennett says:
      17 February 2011 at 7:26 pm

      You know, I used to say the pros­e­cu­tion should win all of its tri­als because it gets to pick which ones get tried.

      Now I don’t think that’s true.

      The pros­e­cu­tion could win all of its tri­als, but shouldn’t: just like us, if they aren’t los­ing some, they aren’t try­ing enough. Some­times tough cases need to be tried.

      Reply
  2. Sunshine L. Swallers says:
    16 February 2011 at 12:24 am

    The cre­ator of this pro­gram and who­ever autho­rized it should be fired. Free­dom, jus­tice, truth, fair­ness are not com­pet­i­tive sports.

    We should bring these emails with us to court and file them along with some kind of dis­cov­ery motion argu­ing due process…

    Screw them.

    Reply
  3. Tweets that mention Another Dispatch From Mr. X via ~ So now getting convictions in Harris County is a contest? With prizes? -- Topsy.com says:
    16 February 2011 at 10:13 am

    […] This post was men­tioned on Twit­ter by fire­hat, Lee Keller King. Lee Keller King said: Another Dis­patch From Mr. X http://j.mp/hYp7hJ via @AddToAny ~ So now get­ting con­vic­tions in Har­ris County is a con­test? With prizes? […]

    Reply
  4. Shandon Tonry says:
    16 February 2011 at 10:50 am

    John Jor­dan men­tioned in his email that some courts are excluded from the con­test. Does a defen­dant have a right to move his case to a Court where there isn’t any moti­va­tion other than jus­tice behind the rec­om­men­da­tion on his file?

    Reply
  5. Skip Coronado says:
    16 February 2011 at 4:57 pm

    Mr. Ben­nett:
    It’s 2012 and all the same 2008 play­ers are run­ning for Har­ris County DA.……is Leit­ner still your boy?

    Reply
  6. Ross says:
    16 February 2011 at 9:38 pm

    What hap­pens if I, as a juror, ask the pros­e­cu­tor if he’s moti­vated to try the case to get one of these perks? Can I kill an entire panel by ask­ing pointed ques­tions about prizes for try­ing cases? Would the judge be mad at me?

    Reply
  7. Larry Standley says:
    16 February 2011 at 11:59 pm

    ” The Road to Hell is Paved with good Inten­tions” — believe me — I have sev­eral pair of old burnt out shoes to prove it. I’m not say­ing this e-mail has any­thing to do with “Hell” — what I AM say­ing is that hav­ing orig­i­nally inter­viewed John at S.T.C.L. in 1998 and per­son­ally refer­ring him to the ini­tial phase of the hir­ing com­mit­tee process — he IS a GOOD man, his heart truly is in the right place and he means well.

    It is my under­stand­ing that those courts that are NOT included “for par­ity rea­son” are those that for what­ever rea­son only have 2 pros­e­cu­tors to begin with. Please note — for what­ever pur­pose — I am NOT weigh­ing in here on the pri­mary topic at hand — only the man. Respect­fully — Larry

    Reply
  8. Shandon Tonry says:
    17 February 2011 at 11:20 am

    I don’t think the criti­sism we are see­ing is an indict­ment of John Jor­dan. He is well liked by many of us. The pol­icy has the appear­ance of pros­e­cut­ing for sport. The job is much too seri­ous and free­dom too para­mount in this coun­try for such con­tests to ever be well received by the pub­lic. Start a foot­ball pool in the office to lighten the mood and let jus­tice be its own reward with regard to the job.

    Reply
  9. Larry Standley says:
    17 February 2011 at 2:05 pm

    Ms. Tonry,

    in gen­eral I agree with what you say. How­ever, “SUNSHINE’S” post — listed above — “casts too long a shadow” on the jist of what you say — of which I DO respect.….…what YOU say.

    Respect­fully,

    Larry

    Reply
    • Shandon Tonry says:
      17 February 2011 at 2:23 pm

      Mr. “Stand“ley,

      It is refresh­ing to see that you do not take what you per­ceive to be an attack on a good pub­lic ser­vant “sit­ting down”. Your point is well taken.

      Sin­cerely,

      Ms. Tonry

      Reply
  10. Mark Bennett says:
    17 February 2011 at 7:22 pm

    I agree entirely with Judge Stan­d­ley. Even though the smart money says that John Jor­dan was just fol­low­ing orders, it is not incon­ceiv­able that Pat Lykos would respond to this episode by fir­ing him (and pub­licly call­ing him nasty names). That would be bad news for the DA’s Office, for the criminal-defense bar, and for Har­ris County’s criminal-justice sys­tem gen­er­ally. I have known John since he was a parole hear­ing offi­cer, and I’ve always found him to be a thought­ful, fair, and upstand­ing lawyer.

    Reply
  11. Larry Standley says:
    17 February 2011 at 9:08 pm

    Wait…Mark — YOU… actu­ally AGREED with me.….OK, NOW I’m hav­ing a Sally Field Acad­emy Awards moment :-) ! Thanks for the pro­fes­sional forum to have intel­li­gent “speak”.…“me thinks”.

    Larry

    Reply
  12. Glenn_G says:
    25 February 2011 at 3:45 pm

    “The pur­pose of these com­pe­ti­tions is to reward folks who go to trial and achieve justice”

    No, Actu­ally the pur­pose of those com­pe­ti­tions are to land some lucky ADA in the sec­ond seat at a Mur­der Trial. It says so right in the awards sections.

    How does Achiev­ing Jus­tice go along in any­way with a com­pe­ti­tion to get as many con­vic­tions as you can? Also, is there any pro­vi­sion for when one of the ‘guilty’ appeals the deci­sion? Does the now ‘los­ing’ ADA have a sign put up on their door that spells out LOSER?

    This isn’t your church’s fam­ily day, this is someone’s life you are play­ing with! And I empha­size PLAYING!

    I should call my state leg­isla­tive rep today and request that This par­tic­u­lar DA receive a gold plated “Defender of the Faith” seal affixed to his door. (yeah, that’s a WHOLE lotta sarcasm)

    Reply
  13. Turk says:
    4 March 2011 at 1:09 pm

    I won­der what your local ethics com­mit­tee will think of this? Giv­ing peo­ple an incen­tive for per­sonal gain instead of justice.

    Reply
  14. Gunnar Rosenquist says:
    16 March 2011 at 5:56 pm

    It’s not just DAs, unfor­tu­nately: at least one Bay Area pub­lic defender demands its attor­neys try a cer­tain num­ber of cases every year, and bases its pro­mo­tion deci­sions in large part on that num­ber.
    So -
    Get a dis­missal at arraign­ment: 0
    Do a good inves­ti­ga­tion, get a dis­missal at the pre-trial con­fer­ence: 0
    Nego­ti­ate an extremely favor­able plea: 0
    Beat the case with pre­trial motions work: 0
    Try a case, win or lose: 1

    It’s lit­er­ally true that you can do great work for your clients, but still get dinged by man­age­ment for not “meet­ing your goals.” (As if get­ting excel­lent results for clients were merely a sec­ondary goal.)

    Reply

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