BENCH MARKS: PASSING SENTENCE ON DALLAS JUDGES

It should be said from the outset that a lot of people are not going to be happy that we brought this up. As an “untouchable,” the Dallas County judiciary rates an eight on a scale of ten – somewhere between, say, historic preservation and Tom Landry’s flex defense.

Legislators and city coun-cilmen, senators and police chiefs, governors and county commissioners are routinely roasted under the glaring spotlight of media attention and special interest pressure. But judges – especially Dallas County judges – have always enjoyed a kind of dignified obscurity. One just doesn’t argue with a judge: His business is too rarified, his responsibility too cosmic, for him to stoop into the realm of the public’s right to know.

The problem with this way of thinking is that, as a matter of fact, there are as many bad judges as there are bad legislators, senators, police chiefs, and county commissioners. The fact that all judges are supposed to be honest, fair, and independent doesn’t mean that they are. Judges are politicians too: They are elected every four years, and they do enjoy enough discretion in the exercise of their powers to sometimes allow the next election to take priority over the business at hand.

Few of us are sanctimonious enough to blame politicians for being political. But in the case of a judge, the tendency has particularly bothersome implications: The judge’s power, unlike that of the senator or the congressman, is direct. With a swipe of the pen or a rap of the gavel, he can clear your name or besmirch it for the rest of your life. He can strip you of your earthly possessions, decide whether you get custody of your own children, put you in a sanitarium, remove you from society altogether. He can influence whether you live or die.

What makes a good judge good and a bad judge bad? It’s a mean question: What makes up a competent jurist is an elusive alchemy involving knowledge of the law and an understanding of the human condition, the ability to know when to follow the rules and when to cross them, a sense of how to bend but not break. Most of all, it involves the instinct for what is right.

As you will see, Dallas has its fair share of both kinds of judges – and a lot of varieties in between. To identify the good, the bad, and the downright dangerous among Dallas’ 70-odd judges, we employed three yardsticks. First, we carefully reviewed each judge’s statistical performance for the past three years – how many cases he disposed of, how many trials he held, how many cases he was willing to dismiss or quash. The thinking here was that a part of being a good judge is plain old hard work: In an increasingly litigious society, quality of justice is inexorably tied to quantity of justice; if justice can’t always be certain, at least it can be swift.

Second, we reviewed the Dallas Bar Association ratings of the Dallas judiciary in 1975 and 1977. The Bar Association’s judicial evaluation poll rates each judge in 10 categories, ranging from punctuality and courtroom decorum to knowledge of the law; a thousand Dallas attorneys participated in each poll. The results of these polls, if taken at face value, can sometimes be misleading: After all, lawyers earn their keep by working with judges; getting a client probation instead of 10 years in the clink is just as often a matter of brown-nosing the judge as of effectively arguing the law. It is understandable that the bar doesn’t want to ruffle too many feathers, a fact reflected in the generous ratings afforded most judges in the poll. Still, because of their comprehensiveness, the Bar Association polls proved to be a valuable weathervane for identifying the very good and the very bad among the judiciary.

Third, and most important, we selected and interviewed in depth our own panel of 30 Dallas lawyers to confirm and flesh out our impressions. The attorneys, who were interviewed on a confidential basis to ensure candor, were selected on the basis of their reputation for fairness, their expertise in various areas of legal practice, and the amount of time they spend actually trying cases at the, courthouse. The interviews centered on three areas: One,, the judges were rated according to their knowledge of the law. Often the difference between a reasonable verdict or punish-ment and an unjust one is the depth of the judge’s understanding of law. If he knows enough to follow proper procedure and i to make reasonable rulings, then | a defendant is at least assured that his punishment won’t out-weigh his offense. Second, they | were ranked in terms of judicial temperament: Does the judge allow both defense and prosecution to develop their cases fully? Does he show bias toward the State? Does he inadvertently display bias to the jury? Is he courteous and deliberate or rude and impulsive in the courtroom? Does he rubber-stamp punishments by some set formula, or does he consider each case on its merits? Is he willing to temper justice with mercy?

Finally, we asked our panel of lawyers to judge members of the judiciary on their willingness to be a judge: Many otherwise competent judges, we found, fail to discharge their duties properly because they are too timid to exercise their powers creatively. They shy away from controversial rulings for fear of reversal by an appellate court; or they stick too strictly to “the book,” even when peculiar circumstances demand otherwise.

In rating members of the Dallas bench, we have considered all levels of the judiciary: the criminal district judges, who hear felony cases; the civil district judges, who handle major civil actions ranging from accident and injury to deceptive trade practice; the county criminal judges, who handle a wide range of misdemeanors and other minor criminal actions; and the justices of the peace, who handle all the minor skirmishes that the other courts don’t want. (Our seven federal judges – who seem to have assumed control of the school district and a good part of City Hall – will be dealt with in ample detail at a later date.)

It’s worth pointing out that our results are no more definitive and no less arbitrary than the results of most trials at the Dallas County courthouse. But we think that the main thing about justice is that it be done. After all, as one member of our panel of attorneys said, “There is no more valuable public official than a good judge, and no more dangerous one than a bad judge.”

BEST JUDGE

JOHN VANCE

I94th Criminal District Court

Born 1933. SMU law school. Admitted to bar 1961. Elected to bench 1969.



Vance, the rock-jawed former prosecutor, is a rare species in Dallas County: A fair, judicious, unbiased criminal judge. Though he learned his craft under the tutelage of District Attorney Henry Wade, he has rarely, if ever, displayed the sort of bias for the State that has become a hallmark of criminal jurisprudence in Dallas. “Tough but fair” was the phrase repeated by members of our panel of attorneys. “He has a conscience,” said one lawyer. “He’s never erratic. You can’t ask more of a judge than that.”

Vance, who’s been on the bench 10 years, was rated the best of Dallas’ 20 criminal and civil district judges in the last Bar Association poll: He was rated “good” in all 10 categories by 94 percent of the attorneys polled. Vance’s strongest assets are his evenhanded application of rules of evidence and constitutional law during trial, his prudence in not showing bias to the jury, and his dedication to hard work. During 1978, Vance held 136 trials, twice as many as some of his colleagues on the criminal bench.

Testament to the esteem Vance has earned from both prosecutors and defense attorneys is an incident that occurred a few years ago: Because of a computer error, the judge was empaneled as a prospective juror in a trial in another criminal court. Both defense and prosecution counsel had a perfect right to “strike” him from consideration on numerous grounds. But both decided to allow him to sit on the jury. “There was no question,” said an attorney involved in the case. “We both knew he would be as fair and impartial as he always is.”

Vance is so fair that he’s been known to disallow testimony from police officers who he feels are stretching the truth or testifying on the basis of hearsay – a practice unheard of at Henry Wade’s courthouse. “He just doesn’t pal with either side,” said a lawyer. “He doesn’t like sending people to the penitentiary,” said another.

Indeed, in one instance, Vance allowed a defendant in the highly-publicized Santos Rodriguez riots to come before him three times to ask for a merciful sentence. Despite intense pressure to bring the hammer down, Vance gave the young Mexican-American probation.

After a decade on the state bench, Vance is frequently mentioned as a candidate for a seat on the state Court of Criminal Appeals or a federal bench. But his unwillingness to politick will probably keep him at the courthouse until he retires or goes into private practice – which will be just fine with members of the Dallas bar.

WORST JUDGE

DEE BROWN WALKER



162nd District Court Born 1912. SMU law school. Admitted to bar 1935. Appointed to bench 1963.



Judge Walker is more than just a bad judge; he is a living legend, known far and wide as the worst judge in Dallas County. Walker is bad on so many different levels it is hard to know where to begin. Take the way he runs his courtroom: “He tells you that his court will reconvene at 1:30 after a lunch break,” says one lawyer. “That means you won’t see him until three o’clock. It doesn’t seem to bother him at all that he can let a simple proceeding drag on for days and days.” He openly rules his court by whim, going off on self-serving, personal campaigns like his seven-year crusade to get former political adversary Charles Ben Howell jailed for contempt of court over an incident that happened in Walker’s courtroom when Howell was representing a divorce case there. When U.S. Dist. Judge Patrick Higginbotham recently issued a writ that kept Howell from going to jail, Walker, exercising his typical lack of restraint, called the federal courts “just glorified justice of the peace courts.” Walker is not even subtle about the fact that his likes and dislikes count much more than the law in his courtroom. “If he doesn’t like a jury’s verdict, he will issue a ’judgement n.o.v.’ (judgement notwithstanding the verdict]. That basically means ’to hell with what the jury thinks; we’re gonna do what I think,’ ” says one lawyer. Only 37 percent of the attorneys in Dallas surveyed in the last Bar poll think Walker correctly applies the rules of procedure and law in his courtroom. Most astute lawyers know that Walker doesn’t pay much attention to the fine points of the law, and they use that fact to their advantage. “Judge Walker,” says one attorney, “will issue a temporary restraining order against anybody for anything at any time. It’s as easy to get a TRO in his court as it is to walk into Baskin-Robbins and take a number.” Several lawyers we interviewed said they think Walker provides a service with his free-wheeling policy towards restraining orders. “Sure it’s not the law,” says an attorney, “but it sure is nice to know that you can always get an extra 10 days to think something over by simply sliding by Dee Brown’s and getting a TRO.” One of his more infamous restraining orders enjoined KDFW-TV from broadcasting one of the parts of a consumer fraud series. Clearly an unconstitutional prior restraint of the press, his order was struck down by a higher court within a couple of days.

Walker has the demeanor of an oldtime Southern sheriff. He is the original redneck. He once briefed a group of young attorneys on “how to handle your nigger witnesses,” and once admonished a young girl who wanted to change her name to match her adopted father’s name because “it sounds too much like a Mexican name.” Originally appointed to the bench by John Connally in 1963, Walker has benefited at the polls because of his notoriety. “Most people have seen Judge Walker’s name in the paper,” says one of his critics, “but they don’t remember at election time that what they read about him was all bad.” But it is.



BEST LEGAL MIND

BEN ELLIS

County Criminal Court # 1

Born 1929. SMU law school. Admitted to bar 1954. Elected to bench 1967.



Ellis can be most easily likened to the acid-tongued professor in The Paper Chase: He knows more law than any lawyer or judge at the courthouse – and he knows that he knows it. “His court is like a school for trial lawyers,” says an attorney. “If I want to make some law,” says another, “I like his court.”

A lot of attorneys, however, don’t like Ellis’ court at all. Ellis may be known as the most tenacious legal scholar at the courthouse, but he’s also known as the rudest and downright snottiest judge. “He’s an old woman in the way he treats lawyers,” says an attorney who’s worked on both sides. “It’s always ’do this and do that’.” Ellis is so persnickity about procedure and The Law that he’s been known to read an attorney the riot act for not filling out a form in triplicate.

A further complaint is that Ellis uses his superior legal knowledge to help the State. Chief among the gripes about Ellis in this regard is that he will never, but never, grant a motion to suppress evidence – one of the main ways a defendant can keep himself from being tried outside the facts of the case.

Ellis’ position is if you don’t like it, you can appeal. “He knows damned well that most defendants can’t afford to pay you to file an appeal; so he has in essence voided a part of the legal process on the grounds that he just doesn’t like it,” says an attorney.

In fairness, it should be said that most lawyers have a grudging respect for Ellis: His judicial temperament may be the worst at the courthouse (he was rated the lowest among all criminal judges in this general area in the 1977 Bar Association poll), but his dedication to legal expertise makes him more than a cut above average. “At least you know where you stand,” says one lawyer. “He’ll make you argue the law – and that goes for both sides. As long as you’re prepared, he can be a great judge.”

Ellis is frequently mentioned as a prime candidate for a district bench, but the prevailing feeling is that he is simply too unpopular with certain factions of the bar ever to make it.



MOST DANGEROUS

ROBERT COLE



Justice of the Peace, Precinct 1 Born 1928. University of Texas law school. Admitted to bar 1951. Elected to bench 1969.



Cole has reportedly mellowed somewhat since the State Commission on Judicial Conduct publicly censured him for harassing a motorist on a Dallas highway. But even a toned-down Bob Cole can be plenty dangerous: He still routinely assesses bonds and fines in simple misdemeanor cases that are twice what his colleagues set. He once fined a speeder $200 just because he didn’t like the looks of his youthful lawyer. When the lawyer protested, Cole replied, “Get a haircut and I’ll drop it to $50.”

That kind of spitefulness bothers attorneys most about Cole: “He doesn’t consider himself an arbiter of the law,” says one lawyer. “He thinks he is the law.” The law according to Bob Cole seems to fall somewhere to the right of Hammurabi’s Code: He once told a startled young prosecutor that he thought much of the Bill of Rights was a hindrance to effective law enforcement. Cole told an equally startled reporter that “The law says a judge must be punitive. I want to do something to materially affect criminals. To punish them.”

Cole is not confused about who the good guys and the bad guys are. The good guys are the police, with whom he frequently rides on drug raids – armed with a pistol. The bad guys are criminal lawyers, who he feels are breaking the law by defending criminals; longhairs, who “make me see red”; marijuana smokers, who he feels are abusing “the most dangerous drug we have today”; and anyone else who disagrees with him.

All of this has earned Cole more enemies than Idi Amin. During his years on the bench, Cole has been sued, censured and criticized probably more than any judge in Dallas history. Through it all, he has remained marvelously arrogant. When the East Dallas Tenants’ Alliance took him to federal court because of grossly prejudiced rulings against tenants in eviction matters, Cole was heard to testify that it had “crossed his mind” that the group was Communist-backed and’ that in general, he found them “very unattractive because of their long hair.” When a Dallas County grand jury subpoenaed Cole amid allegations that he had routinely falsified search warrants for police officers, Cole blustered to a reporter that “maybe I am a little tough on people in my court, but by God, I’m decent.”

When County Commissioner Jim Tyson questioned why one of Cole’s county-paid clerks seemed to be spending a lot of time on his private legal work, Cole retorted: “The next time [Tyson comes to my court] I’m going to tell him to get out, and if he doesn’t, I’m going to put him in jail.”

Part of Cole’s arrogance probably stems from his awesome statistics. Because he as a matter of policy seems to believe anyone accused of an offense must be guilty of it, he is able to whisk cases through his court with assembly-line speed. Cole’s court routinely processes 25,000 cases a year – twice the output of any other court in the county. As for bothersome impediments like jury trials, Cole says, “I don’t think there’s a case in this court worth a trial,”

There are a lot of appropriate final words on Dallas’ own reincarnation of Judge Roy Bean, but perhaps the best comes from the clenched lips of Robert Cole himself. Asked by a reporter to define the responsibility of a judge, Cole replied blithely, “The job of a judge is to enforce the law, nothing more, nothing less.” So much for the innocent-until-proven-guilty theory.



BEST COMIC RELIEF

BERLAIND BRASHEAR

County Criminal Court #5

Born 1934. Texas Southern University law school. Admitted to bar 1967. Appointed to bench 1977.



Brashear’s third-floor misdemeanor court has been variously likened to a “Chinese fire drill,” “kangaroo court,” and “Zulu law.” When the portly Brashear is awake – “You hate to interrupt his sleep; after all, he is a judge” – his antics on the bench can often rival a Rodney Dangerfield monologue for nonstop laughs.

Brashear, among other things, has a little trouble with his legal vocabulary. During a recent debate between defense and prosecution counsel over whether to quash the indictment against the defendant, Brashear silenced a protesting lawyer with a swipe of his hand and allowed in somewhat less than judicial tones, “It’s too late. I already squashed that mother!” On another occasion Brashear listened intently as a defense lawyer protested that the court had violated the Gaskin Rule – a rule of trial procedure as basic as the Miranda Rule. Brashear stroked his ample double chin and retorted, “Well, if it’s that important, let’s bring this guy Gaskin down here and put him on the stand and see what he has to say about it!”

Brashear’s incompetence is largely harmless, though a visit to his offices hardly inspires confidence. Case jackets are strewn about the floor; a bewildered-looking clerk is invariably tinkering with the docketing computer (“I don’t think they’ve ever gotten that thing to work,” says one lawyer.). If he’s there and if he’s awake, Brashear is liable to do anything with a pending case. An attorney recently visited the judge in chambers to request a “pass,” or delay in his client’s DWI case. Brashear nodded, scribbled “dismissed” on the case jacket and tossed it on the floor behind him.

Curiously, the circus in Brashear’s court is wondrously productive: Brashear led all county criminal courts in fines and court costs collected last year, taking in a whopping $1,097,893. And because, as one lawyer says, he’s “bereft of any legal knowledge,” many attorneys actually like his court. “It’s a complete free-for-all,” says one. “But if you can hang in there, you can get just about anything you want.” For one thing, Brashear rarely responds to objections from either side – making it possible for attorneys to introduce just about any kind of evidence at all. For another, when he’s confused – which is most of the time – Brashear’s tendency is always to go light on the defendant. “I like the informality,” said a lawyer. “Sometimes you can forget you’re even in court.”



BEST PLAINTIFFS’ JUDGE

LEONARD HOFFMAN

160th District Court

Born 1919. University of Texas law school. Admitted to bar 1947. Elected to bench 1971.



Plaintiffs’ lawyers contend he is the best civil judge in Dallas County. Defendants’ lawyers contend he is merely the most sympathetic toward plaintiffs. “It makes you mad sometimes,” says one defense attorney, “that Judge Hoffman likes to think of himself as ’Coach’ Hoffman, calling plaintiffs’ attorneys to the side and giving them advice on how to conduct their case.” Hoffman is respected by both sides for his reputation for running a “tight docket” – making sure proceedings run swiftly and smoothly and maintaining rigid control of his courtroom. “Judge Hoffman is willing to really listen to you,” says one attorney, “which is saying a lot when you consider that many of your civil judges make up their minds about a case before all the arguments are presented.” Hoffman traditionally scores high in the bar polls for his willingness to listen to attorneys and witnesses and his practice of allowing both sides to develop their cases fully. His lowest marks have been in applying rules of procedure and the law in the courtroom. “He is the master of off-the-record error,” says one defense lawyer. “He’ll call you to the bench or into chambers and tell you something that you can’t do or must do, and then you’ll have a hard time ever getting any reference to those instructions into the record of the trial.”



BEST PREPARED

JOAN WINN

191st District Court

Born 1942. SMU law school. Admitted to bar 1968. Appointed to bench 1975.



Most judges’ credentials consist of experience as a lawyer and enough political skill to get elected or appointed. Ms. Winn has more than that. Before taking the bench, she served as an appeals officer for the Federal Employee Appeals Authority of the U.S. Civil Service Commission, a job which involved conducting formal hearings and then rendering opinions resolving disputes involving federal law. She received a bachelor of arts degree in psychology (cum laude from Dillard University) and spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nigeria before she went to SMU law school, where she received a jurisdoctorate degree in 1968. She has aspired to be a judge since she became the first black woman attorney practicing in Dallas County in 1969. Four years ago she was appointed to the County Court at Law No. 2, becoming the first black woman judge in Texas. Last year Gov. Briscoe appointed her to the civil district bench, where she is carving quite a reputation for herself. “She’s probably the smartest judge in that courthouse,” says one Dallas attorney. “She knows the law backward and forward and she doesn’t leave any doubts in your mind that she knows how to run her court.” Several other attorneys said they are impressed by Ms. Winn’s practice of taking home legal files and studying them to stay ahead of her caseload. “She works very hard at being a judge, and people respect that,” says one attorney.



HARDEST WORKING

JOE ASHMORE

Probate Court #2

Born 1933. SMU Law School. Admitted to bar 1963. Appointed to bench 1975.



Ashmore is one of the least accessible of Dallas County judges – not because he’s off playing golf every afternoon like a lot of his colleagues, but because he’s always on the bench. Ashmore not only handles one third of the heavy probate load, he handles the entire mental illness docket for the county. That means he hears a total of nearly 4000 cases a year. Many county-level criminal courts process higher numbers, but most of their work involves simply taking pleas. A good portion of Ashmore’s work requires some kind of trial or hearing – taxing work that requires the utmost concentration from the judge.

Despite his ridiculously heavy workload, Ashmore has made time to establish himself as one of the Dallas judiciary’s few bona fide progressives. With the help of various state and county mental health agencies, Ashmore last year pioneered a revised mental health commitment procedure – one which demands the active involvement of psychiatric and medical personnel. Despite the obscurity of his court, Ashmore has begun to receive the respect he’s due from the legal community: In last year’s Bar Association poll, he racked up the highest score in the history of the poll, being rated “Good” or “Excellent” in all ten categories by 97 percent of the attorneys polled.



MOST POLITICAL

JOHN MEAD

Criminal District Court #4

Born 1922. SMU law school. Admitted to bar 1950. Appointed to bench 1963.

Mead is frequently referred to as the dean of the criminal judges, but a lot of lawyers consider the designation at best titular. Since he took the bench, they say, Mead has spent at least as much time politicking for higher offices (ranging from Congress to a federal bench) as he has studying law and hearing cases.

Mead is the consummate politician: His “judgely” manner and appearance are carefully groomed, and he is perennially the most popular judge at the courthouse among reporters. Mead’s sense of show biz is so acute that he frequently gets the nod from District Attorney Henry Wade to preside over the more highly publicized criminal trials.

On the bench, though, lawyers say Mead has become erratic at best. Trials in his court can range from fair and judicious to ridiculously one-sided affairs for the State. “He’s become sort of a disappointment,” says one experienced criminal lawyer. “He had a lot of promise, and many of us expected him to become the leader of the criminal bench down there. Now he just seems like a bitter man sometimes.”



MOST

UNWELCOME

VISITOR

ED GOSSETT

Visiting Judge

195th Criminal District Court

Born 1902. University of Texas law school. Admitted to bar 1927. Appointed to bench 1968.



Members of the Dallas criminal bar groaned collectively when the hard-nosed Gossett was exhumed from retirement last year to fill in for the ailing R.T. Scales. While his ready grandfatherly grin and country wit made him one of the most popular regulars in the courthouse cafeteria, his work on the bench was often likened to the surgical techniques of a medieval barber.

Gossett’s bias for the State is so overt that he routinely has twice the percentage of cases reversed by the Court of Criminal Appeals of any other judge in the county. Just since returning last year, Gosset has chalked up a 16-percent reversal rate. “I actually like to get some cases in his court,” an experienced trial attorney once said. “If things get to going badly, I can just bait him into committing reversible error and get the case kicked back by the high court.”

Curiously, Gossett’s court is considered the most lenient in the county for drug offenders – probably because the judge’s son got in trouble with the law over drugs a few years back. “If it’s marijuana, he can be compassionate,” says one lawyer. “If it’s a black on white rape, though, watch out.”

Scales’ absence is regarded as almost as big a tragedy as Gossett’s return: Before his bout with heart troubles and open heart surgery, Scales, a former defense lawyer, was uniformly considered the second best criminal judge at the courthouse. Because of post-operative complications, there is now some question about whether the 56-year-old jurist will ever return to the bench.

MOST PLEASANT SURPRISE

RICHARD MAYS



204th Criminal District Court Born 1939. University of Texas law school. Admitted to bar 1965. Appointed to bench 1973.



When Mays was appointed to a newly created criminal bench in 1973, the criminal bar gritted its teeth and prepared for the worst. Mays was a likable, intelligent attorney, but his legal grooming consisted of eight years as one of Henry Wade’s “mad dog” prosecutors. Any lawyer who’d ever tried a case at the Dallas County courthouse knew what to expect: Mays, like the rest of Wade’s former minions – who make up nearly three quarters of the criminal judiciary in the county – would be another “hanging judge” who took his orders from Henry and treated criminal lawyers like unwanted visitors to the courtroom.

Mays scored points early by quickly becoming the most respected trial judge at the courthouse – a unique designation. According to lawyers who have tried cases in his court, Mays has a film director’s grasp of how to bring out the best in each lawyer – and his case. “He’s the best at allowing lawyers to express their personalities in trial. His grasp of law is not great, but he will listen,” said one lawyer. “He’s willing to say, look, I’m the judge and this is the way it’s going to be.”

Mays also earned his reputation by hard work: His court was among the top four in disposed-of cases and jury trials last year – a remarkable achievement for a young and inexperienced jurist. But mostly, Mays has made a name For himself by his independence. Earlier this spring, he led a charge to have Annex Court Judge Claude Williams removed from the criminal bench because he simply didn’t know criminal law – a move that directly insulted his former boss, Henry Wade. Predictably, Wade won the probably popular because it is representative of the way Leftwich runs his court: It’s a real doghouse. “Snowden doesn’t think anything at all about turning a one-day trial into a four-day marathon,” says one lawyer. “He’s got to joke with the jurors some; spend a good amount of time insulting the attorneys involved; make sure he takes care of all his personal business; finally he’ll get around to conducting the trial if you keep after him long enough.” Leftwich is the embodiment of the bad judge stereotype: arbitrary, boisterous, domineering. He is viewed by many lawyers as a judge who considers his own opinion to be eminently more important than the law. This attitude has not made him popular in local legal circles. In the most recent Dallas Bar poll, only 35 percent of the attorneys voting indicated they approved of the overall manner in which he conducts his court – the lowest grade received by any judge in Dallas. Only 32 percent of the lawyers in the poll said they

probably popular because it is representative of the way Leftwich runs his court: It’s a real doghouse. “Snowden doesn’t think anything at all about turning a one-day trial into a four-day marathon,” says one lawyer. “He’s got to joke with the jurors some; spend a good amount of time insulting the attorneys involved; make sure he takes care of all his personal business; finally he’ll get around to conducting the trial if you keep after him long enough.” Leftwich is the embodiment of the bad judge stereotype: arbitrary, boisterous, domineering. He is viewed by many lawyers as a judge who considers his own opinion to be eminently more important than the law. This attitude has not made him popular in local legal circles. In the most recent Dallas Bar poll, only 35 percent of the attorneys voting indicated they approved of the overall manner in which he conducts his court – the lowest grade received by any judge in Dallas. Only 32 percent of the lawyers in the poll said they felt Leftwich has the proper “judicial temperament and demeanor” to be a judge. The only thing that has kept Leftwich from being the worst judge in Dallas is that he does not work at it as hard as Judge Dee Brown Walker. And Leftwich is not totally without fans among the Dallas bar. “You won’t find a more dedicated judge than Snowden Leftwich,” says one veteran Dallas attorney. “He is one of those people who really try to do what they think is right. Given time, he can make a very fair, very good ruling in a case. What most people don’t take into consideration is that Judge Leftwich is doing the very best he can with the limited tools that he brings to the bench.”



BEST UNSUNG HEROES

CRAIG PENFOLD

304th District Court Born 1942. University of Texas law school. Admitted to bar 1968. Elected to bench 1976.



PAT McCLUNG

305th District Court Born 1923. University of Oklahoma law school. Admitted to bar 1949. Appointed to bench 1975.



Penfold and McClung get a unanimous pat on the back from trial lawyers for handling an extremely complex area of law with prudence and dedication. Few judges are asked to exercise as much discretion as a juvenile judge: Depending upon the defendant, the crime, and the circumstances, the judge can place a juvenile offender on probation, send him to reform school, order psychiatric testing and therapy, or return him to his parents.

Pen fold and McClung together handled more than 12,000 bits of juvenile business last year – everything from hearings to certify the offender as an adult to hearings on abuse and neglect. Attorneys say despite the heavy workload and the difficulty of the work, Penfold and McClung are always fair, sensitive, and independent. “Wade has been pushing them on cracking down on juveniles,” says one lawyer. “But neither one of them is bending. They realize that because they’re dealing with kids, their responsibility to be merciful is much greater.”

WORST PR

TOM PRICE

County Criminal Court #5

Born 1945. Baylor law school. Admitted

to bar 1970. Elected to bench 1974.



Since the flamboyant Price was elected in 1974, he’s had no trouble getting his name spelled right in the papers: He first blazed to prominence when he nonchalantly allowed that he often carried a pistol to the bench for protection; then, this past spring, he became ensnarled in a dogfight with District Attorney Henry Wade that became so nasty that Wade tried to have him censured and removed from the bench by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct.

One part of the courthouse grapevine – the part controlled by Henry Wade – has it that Price is following in the dubious footsteps of Justice of the Peace Robert Cole. But the lawyers who try cases in Price’s court don’t really agree: They admit that Price is, well, a little “weird”: immature, erratic, still too swayed by his emotions and still too inclined to think with his mouth. But on balance, they say, he is a promising jurist: reasonably knowledgeable, fair, hardworking.

In fact, despite his pistol-toting image, Price is considered something of a progressive by many trial lawyers. Not long after his election, he singlehandedly reformed the ridiculous system of writ bonding, making it possible for a DWI defendant to post a nominal, pre-set bond without having to call a judge at three in the morning. Earlier this year, he began the unheard-of practice of reducing simple, first-time, unaggravated DWI charges to public intoxication – a misdemeanor carrying a much lower fine range and a much weaker stigma. Some attorneys claim it was the latter innovation that got Wade on Price’s back. Wade built much of his reputation on a hang-’em-high policy toward DWI offenders, they say, and Price’s disregard for Henry’s Law rankled the veteran.

If Price has any problem it is that “he has a tendency to find reasons not to be there.” His apparent lack of interest in his duties is amply reflected in his productivity in 1978: How hard a county criminal judge works can easily be measured by the fines and court costs collected during a given year. Price’s court collected about $570,000 last year – the lowest among the seven county criminal courts and half the collections of two of his colleagues.



DEADWOOD

J. ROLL FAIR

101st District Court

Born 1911. SMU law school. Admitted to

bar 1942. Appointed to bench 1969.

J. Roll Fair has one clear disadvantage as a judge: He doesn’t like to hear cases. Fair runs his court by Matthew 7:1, “Judge not, that ye be not judged,” trying to get lawyers for both sides of a case to agree on everything. If they don’t, he’s perfectly willing to wait until they do. Cases have taken years in his court.



HUGH SNODGRASS

193rd District Court

Born 1916. SMU law school. Admitted to

bar 1953. Appointed to bench 1969.

Snodgrass could easily be replaced by a lottery wheel. Lawyers who have practiced in his court contend that he uses no rational or legal basis for sustaining or denying motions, but that his decisions are based on some type of odd-even rationing system. “You can always console yourself when he makes a ruling you don’t understand,” says one attorney, “because you can be assured that he doesn’t understand it either.”



JAMES F. McCARTHY



116th District Court

Born 1920. SMU law school. Admitted to bar 1948. Appointed to bench 1963.

McCarthy’s main goal in the courtroom seems to be to insult all the attorneys present. He traditionally gets low marks for his fairness in the Dallas Bar poll, largely because he is too busy playing Don Rickles to play judge.



BEST ORGANIZED BUT…

JAMES ZIMMERMANN



Criminal District Court #3

Born 1932. SMU law school. Admitted to bar 1961. Appointed to bench 1968.



In the legal community, Zimmermann has a national reputation – but not for his legal knowledge, his political clout, his toughness on defendants, or even his courtroom style. Jim Zimmermann has built his reputation as a judge on his fascination with and knowledge of computers – and how they can be applied to the horrendously complex task of organizing the day-to-day business of a criminal court.

Zimmermann’s obsession with manipulating modern technology to serve justice has made him at best an enigmatic figure at the courthouse. While the paperwork of his court runs like a finely tuned Ferrari engine, lawyers say he is an erratic, unpredictable judge on the bench. Chief among the gripes about Zimmer-mann is that he tends not to show up a lot: Attorneys complain that he is invariably late to court in the morning, and that he is given to calling unnecessary recesses during heated trials – sometimes just to chat about politics or sports in his chambers for an hour or two. (Zimmermann’s ratings for punctuality were the lowest among all criminal and civil district judges in the bar polls in both 1975 and 1977.)

“He’s just bored with being a judge,” says one lawyer. Other attorneys say Zimmermann’s courtroom is a “hostile” battleground, where they are liable to be dressed down in front of their client and the jury for the most picayune reasons.

Apparently, Zimmermann gets impatient when he’s doing anything other than tinkering with his computer docketing systems. Last year, he managed to hold fewer than half as many trials as any of his colleagues on the criminal bench – a sure measure of lack of interest or laziness in a criminal judge. Interestingly, he ranked among the top four or five in total disposals – an accomplishment mostly due to his docketing expertise.



BEST JUDGE IN FORT WORTH

CHARLES MURRAY

17th District Court Born 1919. SMU law school. Admitted to bar 1949. Appointed to bench 1963.



There may be debate in the legal community about who the best judge in Dallas is. There is no debate in Fort Worth. The best judge is Charles Murray, hands down. He is the favorite of the legal community, the media, and everyone else with an interest in the judicial system. Judge Murray is renowned for his fairness. “I have never seen him abuse his power,” says one veteran Fort Worth lawyer. “I think you would have to set fire to his robes or something to get him mad.” But he is no pushover on the bench, largely because he has the best legal mind in the Tarrant County Courthouse. “With, a lot of these judges,” says one attorney, “you figure they are on the bench for a comfortable, secure income; their abilities are such that being a judge is the best-paying job they can hold down. But with Judge Murray, you know he could be making a fortune in private practice if he wanted to; he’s too good not to. The only logical conclusion that leaves is that the man is extremely dedicated.” A former winner of the Fort Worth Press Club Freedom of Information Award, Murray is popular with the media for allowing reporters as much access to the courtroom as possible without disrupting trials. He’s never too busy to take time to explain complicated legal issues to reporters – and sometimes to other judges.



WORST JUDGE IN FORT WORTH

HAROLD L.VALDERAS

233rd District Court

SMU law school. Admitted to bar 1954.

Appointed to bench 1977.



It is fitting that Gov. Dolph Briscoe appointed Judge Valderas to the district bench on April 1, 1977. Motivated by a massive ego for which there is scant basisin his accomplishments or his ability,Judge Valderas makes it obvious that hesees the courtroom as merely another stepon the political ladder. Lawyers who havetried cases in his court say he treats attorneys for both sides of each case likeunwanted stepchildren and takes an incredibly long time to make the simplestdecisions. That’s possibly because hespends most of his time and talents promoting himself. Valderas obviously decided long ago that the road to success wasnot in his limited legal abilities but in thepolitical arena. He’s done everything tobuild his image from becoming the consummate club joiner to getting a hairtransplant. That strategy has obviouslyworked. He was able to use his connections to propel himself from a mediocrecareer as a Fort Worth municipal judge tothe district bench. Critics contend he hasgained a lot of mileage from his Mexican-American-sounding surname (he is actually of Puerto Rican descent), while beingone of the least tolerant judges in thecounty towards minorities.