When Harris County voters head to the polls this election season, they will elect the county’s first new district attorney in nearly a decade — a choice that will set the agenda for criminal justice in Harris County for at least four years.
“Even though this is a down-ballot race, (the district attorney race) is probably one of the most important races in Harris County,” said Amy Smith, senior director of communications and operations at the Harris County Domestic Violence Coordinator Council. “It’s going to set the pace for the next four years on how we deal with crime in Harris County.”
The primary responsibility of the Harris County District Attorney’s Office is to prosecute criminal cases in the county’s felony, misdemeanor, and juvenile courts. Prosecutors operate at the heart of the county’s criminal justice system, working with police officers, victims, defendants, defense lawyers and judges to ensure justice is done.
The incumbent district attorney, Democrat Kim Ogg, took office in January 2017 amid a swell of progressive support. However, the relationship between Ogg and county Democrats soured heavily in recent years after Ogg reversed course on some progressive positions, like bail reform, and allegations that she had weaponized her office by filing charges against political rivals or their connections. Ogg eventually lost this year’s Democratic primary to challenger Sean Teare.
Teare, a Democrat, now faces Republican Dan Simons in the Nov. 5 general election.
Houston Landing spoke with a range of stakeholders and community members across Harris County to better understand what residents expect from their incoming district attorney. Those interviewed included police, defense lawyers, advocates for criminal justice reform, civic club leaders and a county commissioner. They provided a variety of replies and sometimes expressed competing priorities, but common themes emerged.
For example, many community members expressed frustration over the district attorney’s intake division. The intake division is a specialized part of the district attorney’s office where prosecutors work with law enforcement officers to review and accept charges before a defendant is processed through the system.
Ogg restructured the division when she took office, but almost everyone interviewed by the Landing said the new district attorney should reverse those changes.
Other points of emphasis were the need to reduce overcrowding at the Harris County Jail, a desire to build community trust in the office and the district attorney’s responsibility to do justice to everyone impacted by the justice system — both victims of crime and defendants.
Reverse changes to intake
When Ogg took office in 2017, she made wholesale changes to the office’s intake division. At the time, seasoned prosecutors staffed intake round the clock, working overtime shifts to take calls from police officers at the scene of arrests and decide whether to file criminal charges.
Ogg, however, transformed the division by shifting to a full-time staff of prosecutors with varying levels of experience. Now, stakeholders told the Landing, law enforcement officers must negotiate with “rookie” prosecutors — resulting in more weak cases making their way into the courts and some good charges slipping through the cracks.
“Since that time, (prosecutors’) caseload has increased and the dismissal rate has increased exponentially, because now people are only realizing the quality of those cases (when) they’re set for trial — sometimes the day of trial,” said Alex Bunin, Chief Public Defender for Harris County.
Stakeholders also said Ogg’s changes to intake have led to a parallel crisis: overcrowding and lethal conditions at the Harris County Jail.
“When you have a broken intake system, then you have what we’re dealing with today — an unnecessarily overcrowded jail,” said Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia in an interview with the Landing. “There’s so many people in there, I believe, that will never see a courtroom because their cases don’t have the evidence or their cases are unwinnable.”
Another unintended consequence of Ogg’s changes to intake has been an erosion of trust between the district attorney’s office and law enforcement, said Doug Griffith, president of the Houston Police Officer’s Union.
“With the way the department is run currently and the number of cases that are dismissed, our officers get very demoralized in trying to do what is right by the community,” Griffith said. “It’s hard to get things done.”
Garcia, Griffith and Bunin, along with others who flagged intake as an issue, unanimously said they would like the new district attorney to return the division to its previous structure.
“Over 4,500 felony charges were dismissed because of lack of probable cause in 2022, and that is directly because of the quality of the intake line of the (district attorney’s) office,” said Krish Gundu, co-founder and executive director of the nonprofit Texas Jail Project.
Gundu said the new district attorney should address the jail crisis holistically. First, he should reverse Ogg’s changes at intake. Second, he should accept recommendations issued by the Justice Management Institute in 2020, for example by dismissing all non-violent felony charges older than nine months.
“That would immediately free up the courts’ resources and the jail’s resources to move cases along,” Gundu said.
Rebuild trust in the office
In addition to resolving the issues at intake, many stakeholders also told the Landing they would like to see the new district attorney build trust in the office — both internally and externally.
Murray Newman, a defense lawyer and former Harris County prosecutor, told the Landing that that process needs to start with a culture of support within the office, one that could help prosecutions run more efficiently.
“I want to have an environment in my DA’s office (where) people know they’re appreciated, their experience is appreciated, the job they do is going to be appreciated, and they don’t need to live in fear that if they do something wrong that they’re going to lose their entire career,” Newman said.
Others, however, emphasized that the new district attorney must also build trust between the office and the communities it serves. For Jennefer Canales-Pelaez, Texas policy attorney and strategist at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, that means a commitment to “protecting all of our community members.”
“A disturbing trend that we have noticed is that the criminal justice-type bills or criminal legal system is being used more and more to go after immigrants,” Canales-Pelaez said. “We haven’t had… protection under the current district attorney, so we’re hoping that there might be a better option this time around.”
Travis McGee, president of a civic association in the Houston neighborhood of Sunnyside and head of the adjacent South Park Super Neighborhood, urged the new district attorney to build trust through community engagement.
“Any elected employees have to listen to the people and the real community leaders to actually know what’s going on in the city,” McGee said.
McGee said many in his community feel as though they have been “neglected” by law enforcement, with slow response times by police and little outreach from prosecutors. He suggested town hall meetings and “open-door policies” as a potential solution.
Garcia, the Precinct 2 Commissioner, said he had heard similar feedback from his constituents and recommended the new district attorney establish “advisories of communities that represent the greatest level of distrust.”
“If you don’t have a dialogue then you just inflame that distrust that naturally will always exist with the criminal justice system,” he said.
McGee also said that the new district attorney should build community trust by holding law enforcement accountable for misconduct.
“Crime’s got to be considered a crime regardless of who’s committing it,” said McGee. “If a police (officer) is committing the crimes, then they have to be prosecuted the same as well.”
Monique Joseph, holistic services director for the nonprofit Restoring Justice, said the new district attorney should ensure law enforcement agencies turn over information about officer misconduct so prosecutors can then provide that information to defense attorneys — a matter of “public trust” and simple fairness.
“We just want the district attorney to do what the law requires them to — honor and lift people’s civil rights,” she said.
Commit to justice, not convictions
A third key theme that emerged during the Landing’s conversations with community members: the new district attorney must ensure justice is done for everyone impacted by the criminal system.
For some, that means supporting crime victims through the prosecution and conviction process. Smith, of the Harris County Domestic Violence Coordinating Council, wants to see better communication with victims and a more holistic approach to addressing their needs.
“We need to stop treating victims like a checklist,” she said. “Each victim is individual and unique and they have a different set of circumstances. They’re not going to fit in a perfect little mold, so you need to stop treating them like that.”
Others urged the new district attorney to consider the nuances of victim advocacy after a conviction is secured.
“I think it’s important for the new DA to recognize that post-conviction victim advocacy is a growing concern,” said Andy Kahan, director of victim services and advocacy at Crime Stoppers of Houston. “Victim advocacy doesn’t simply end when a person goes to prison.”
Smith and Kahan provided a variety of suggestions for improving engagement between prosecutors and victims, from ensuring specialized prosecutorial divisions are fully staffed to supporting Crime Stoppers’ initiative to share videotaped victim impact statements at parole hearings instead of in-person testimony.
“Think outside the box of how you can help victims, so the onus (is not on) the victim to have to carry these cases,” Smith said.
However, justice for Harris County residents also means taking a more “comprehensive” approach to public safety, one that upholds defendants’ rights and addresses the root cause of crime.
“Someone (who) has made a mistake… must be held accountable,” Garcia said. “I want the next district attorney to really think long and hard about how we make sure that Harris County remains safe, but by the same token make sure that individuals are looked at very holistically… so we can ensure they won’t find their way back to the county jail.”
Joseph, of Restoring Justice, suggested the new district implement restorative practices that rehabilitate offenders and repair communities. A potential model: the Restorative Justice Community Courts of Cook County, Illinois, which help young adults charged with non-violent crimes work with victims to “resolve conflict” and reduce recidivism through a program of community engagement.
“Consider how we can prevent this from happening again and address the harm that’s already happened,” Joseph said.