Travis Precinct 211

The Supreme Court of Texas is the highest Civil court in Texas. There are 9 justices. Two Justices have recently retired or announced retirement. As such, place 3 and place 9 are “open seats”.

The composition of the balance of the court is:

• Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson had 7 years experience as an appellate lawyer before joining the court in 2004.
• Place 2: Don Willett had 6 years experience as a prosecutor before joining the court in 2005.
• Place 4: David Medina had 4 years of District Court experience and six years experience as a litigator before joining the court in 2004
• Place 5: Paul Green had 10 years of appellate judicial experience before joining the court in 2004.
• Place 6: Nathan Hecht had 5 years of District Court experience, and 2 years of appellate judicial experience before joining the court in 1988.
• Place 7: Dale Wainwright had 3 years of District Court experience before joining the court in 2002
• Place 8: Phil Johnson had 23 years experience as a litigator, and 7 years of appellate judicial experience before joining the court in 2005

The Governor recently appointed Eva Guzman to fill a vacancy on place 9. Justice Guzman has 8 years of appellate judicial experience.
Rose Vela is also running for the place 9 position. She has 12 years of district court experience, and 4 years of appellate judicial experience, in addition to 12 years serving as a trial and appellate lawyer. In addition to significant civil law experience, she also has criminal law and family law experience.

The court contains a mixture of people with experience in District, Appellate, Litigator, and Prosecutor roles. Place 3 provides a microcosm of those roles. There are six candidates running for that position.

• Rebecca Simmons has 20 years experience as a trial and appellate lawyer, as well as 5 years of appellate judicial experience.
• Jeff Brown has 6 years experience on the District court level, and 2 years of appellate judicial experience.
• Debrah Lehrmann has 22 year of experience on the District court level. In addition, she annotates the Family Law code, reviewing each of the family law cases that are decided at the appellate and supreme court levels. Her decisions have seldom been overturned at the appellate level.
• Rick Green has 4 years experience as a State Legislator. He has spent the past ten years speaking on Constitutional History and Law.
• Jim Moseley has 10 years of appellate judicial experience. He has authored over 1000 opinions.
• Rick Strange has 5 years of appellate judicial experience. He has authored over 400 opinions.

I have talked personally with three of these candidates: Rick Green, Jim Moseley, and Debra Lehrmann. Each of these have been endorsed by people that I trust. They all have long records of in-the-trenches work for the Republican party.
This race will almost certainly go into a runoff election in April. For the primary, the decision of whom to endorse is a difficult one. It mainly comes down to what sort of experience you want to add to the Supreme Court.
Jim Moseley has significant experience in writing complex business legal opinions. That is the bread-and-butter of the court, and he would serve well in that role.
Debra Lehrmann has significant experience in Family Law. Although little-used a the Supreme Court level, it is a distinct gap in the experience at the Supreme Court. The recent cases involving the Yearning for Zion ranch found the Supreme Court ill prepared, and Judge Lehrmann was encouraged to run for the Supreme Court to fill that gap.
Rick Green has a different perspective, as a former legislator, on the law. His knowledge of the US Constitution and the founding fathers is unparalleled among the sitting court members or his fellow candidates. I believe he would bring a unique perspective in interpretation. I also think he would be the least ready on “day one” to author opinions.

In my opinion, I would opt to add Rose Vela and Rick Green to the court. I believe that would add the most diversity of opinion and would yield, in the long run, a stronger court. While I appreciate Judge Moseley’s experience, it is similar to the bulk of the court – complex, civil court cases dealing with business law. I also appreciate Debra Lehrmann’s specialty in Family Law, but I believe that experience is better served at the District and Appellate levels where the majority of family law cases are determined. Either of the Place 9 candidates would do well for the State of Texas, and the three Place 3 candidates that I have interviewed would all uphold the Republican value of strict construction-ism.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 7th, 2010 at 9:04 pm and is filed under 2010, Elections, endorsement. 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.