One purpose Texas’ highest courts have 9 members is in order that justices with completely different views can take a look at their concepts in convention. They problem one another’s concepts till arriving at a majority opinion. The state’s closing arbiter on instances involving every thing from homicide to public intoxication — the Texas Legal Court docket of Appeals — must have at the least one member with intensive expertise in trials defending purchasers.
At present, the decide on the courtroom with that have is Justice Scott Walker, 68, who’s dealing with off in opposition to a Harris County assistant prosecutor within the March 1 Republican major. A graduate of Dallas Baptist College and Baylor College of Legislation, Walker practiced legislation earlier than judges and juries defending individuals dealing with civil and prison expenses. In 2016, he received a six-year time period to Place 5 of the Texas Legal Court docket of Appeals.
His opponent, Clint Morgan, 40, says Walker writes too few opinions and takes too lengthy when he does. He instructed us he suspects that’s as a result of Walker’s protection lawyer mindset finds few converts on the all-Republican courtroom, the place no different member brings a considerable background as a protection lawyer. Morgan notes he’s received 10 of the 12 instances he’s had earlier than the Court docket of Legal Appeals. If elected, he says he’d depend on his personal substantial appellate expertise to provide extra opinions, and produce a prosecutor’s mindset to his work.
We imagine Morgan’s criticisms miss their mark by a large margin. It’s not a defect that Walker brings a protection lawyer’s perspective into the justices’ deliberations. And we expect Walker is smart when he gives no apology for being assigned to put in writing fewer majority opinions than different justices.
“I’m not going to vary my thoughts or water it down so I can get the vote,” Walker instructed the editorial board. “I’m very cautious to observe the Structure and the legal guidelines.”
He argues that he has, over time, introduced larger steadiness to the courtroom. In Ruiz v. Texas, for instance, Walker joined the bulk in refusing prosecutors to make use of as proof outcomes from a blood-alcohol take a look at taken with no warrant from a hospitalized, unconscious man who was suspected of drunken driving.
The 2019 determination impacted instances throughout Texas, and Morgan mentioned it made prosecutors’ jobs more durable in DWI instances. It’s an instance of an over-emphasis on process that’s extra usually a part of a protection lawyer’s mindset, he mentioned.
And but each the district courtroom and a courtroom of appeals had already dominated that the proof couldn’t be admitted.
Walker defended the opinion on purely constitutional grounds.
“The Fourth Modification, and its protections from search and seizure, is the supreme legislation of the land,” he mentioned.
By any definition, Walker is a conservative justice. However even throughout a surge in violent crime — maybe particularly throughout such a time — Texas’s highest prison courtroom advantages from judges who deliver as broad a wide range of backgrounds as doable, and ones who aren’t afraid to remind their colleagues of defendants’ basic rights.
We must always attempt for an environment friendly system that follows the legislation and Structure. In direction of the top of our name with Walker, he talked a couple of great workload earlier than the courtroom. Main voters ought to give him an opportunity to proceed ought to he prevail over Democrat Dana Huffman within the basic election.
Extra Suggestions from Editorial Board
