The Hardest Thing

Somebody once asked me what was the hardest case I ever had to do. Now, I've been a criminal trial lawyer for over 36 years. I've been involved in thousands of criminal cases, both as a prosecutor and a defense lawyer. I've tried over a 150 jury trials. And, you might imagine, I've had to see, hear and deal with some pretty awful stuff. But one case leapt to mind.

It began on a Saturday afternoon. My client took his kids to some event. It's been a few years now, so I can't remember whether it was tractor pull or a car show. He drank some beer while he was there. When he returned home, his wife was upset because he had been drinking while he had been out the the children. They argued. He left and went to a beer joint down the road. He came back home drunk. He and his wife argued some more. His wife refused to let him back in the house. He got in his truck and drove in the direction of Canyon Lake.

At about this same time, a concert ended at Whitewater Amphitheater. A line of cars left the concert venue and headed down the road in the direction of my client's truck. As these cars were passing him on the road, my client's truck drifted approximately a foot or two over the dividing line of the highway. His truck struck an oncoming car head on. Several other cars piled up in a wreck behind.

The first car was driven by a teenage girl. After the accident, a number of other concert-goers left their vehicles to help the accident victims. When they reached the teenage girl in the first car, they discovered she was pinned behind the steer wheel. They tried to get her out, but retreated when her car burst into flames.

As so often happens nowadays, someone in the crowd of people that had then gathered pulled out a cell phone and started recording. It was this video, the video of a young woman being burned to death a car, that I had to watch over and over while I prepared for my client's jury trial a couple of years later.

After the wreck, my client, who was unconscious, was air-lifted to a hospital in San Antonio. In the months that followed, he was despondent. He spend many months recovering from his injuries. His wife divorced him. And he was obsessed every day by the death he had caused. He spiraled into depression and went into therapy. Me and my staff wondered amongst ourselves whether or not he would commit suicide before his trial date.

At trial, my client stood in front of a jury, accepted responsibility for his actions, and pleaded "guilty." The jury heard from concert-goers who had witnessed the wreck, from other victims who had been injuried, from police officers who worked the accident scene and the girl's loved ones. They heard from my client's friends, family members, therapist, and from my client himself. And they watched the video.

After a few hours of deliberations, the jury sent my client to prison. After a few beers and a couple of feet over the center line, a couple of parents lost their daughter to a horrible death and a couple of children lost their father to prison.

Driving While Intoxicated affects almost all of us. Every time I pick a jury in a DWI case, I ask the potential jurors how many of them have themselves been, or had someone close to them become, the victim of a drunk driver. It's normal for about half of the people on the panel to raise their hands. And behind closed doors, I have spent the last few decades hearing many of my DWI clients tell me of their struggles with depression, PTSD, bipolar disorder, and the alcoholism and other addictions that result because they have been unable to get the help and treatment they need. And I have seen a lot a suffering. I wish I could tell you that the case I described above was the only Intoxication Manslaughter or Intoxication Assault case I have ever been involved in, either as a prosecutor or defense lawyer. It isn't, it's ust the most horrific, just the one that haunts me the most.

Far and away, the most common type of case that County Court-at-Law No. 2 handles are Driving While Intoxicated cases. This court, more than any other court in Hays County, plays a direct role in trying to prevent drunk driving deaths. If you allow me to be your judge, I pledge to take steps to do just that. I applaud the efforts of Judge Jimmy Hall in County Court-at-Law No. 1, who has helped created Hays County's first DWI Treatment Court -- an intensive supervision program for repeat offenders, with an emphasis on alcohol, drug and mental health treatment. The program launches this Spring, and I will encourage the use of this program for those found guilty of being repeat DWI offenders who come before my court. But we should not wait for people to become repeat offenders before we intervene. We should use condititons of bail bonds and the expertise of the folks at our at our Pretrial Services Division to help people get access to treatment while their cases are pending. When someone is on probation for DWI, we shouldn't wait for the District Attorney to file a motion to take that probation away in order find out that a probationer isn't succeeding. As your judge, I will make sure that ever person on probation for DWI has a compliance hearing at the midway point of that probation so that the court can, hopefully, intervene to get someone help if they need it. And I will make myself available to law enforcement after hours so that, if they need to request a search warrant for a blood draw as a part of a DWI investigation, they will have a judge available.

Our campaign's slogan is "Let's Get Real." There's nothing more real than the suffering caused by drunk driving. There's nothing more real than listening to parents describe what it's like to lose a child. There's nothing more real than struggle of someone who has battled mental health issues or addiction without help. There's nothing more real than the horror of the video that I, and a courtroom full of people, had to watch a few years back. I hope I never have to see another video like that one. I can never unsee the first one. Let's get real and do something about it.