Still catching up after a nice vacation on the emerald coast. A few things caught my eye.
First is the “investigation” into Judge Alicia Franklin’s billing practices by local attorney Greg Enos. I’m not certain what Enos is trying to accomplish in this one. He did well in helping to expose Judge Denise Pratt’s incompetence behind the bench. But this one puzzles me – he initially was going to go after former HCRP Chair Gary Polland for his billing practices but is now honed in on Judge Franklin.
It appears to me that Enos wants to change the way attorneys bill Harris County for their CPS appointments. Which is A-okay with me if they are over-billing or fraudulently billing. Thus far, he hasn’t proven his case, focusing instead on total hours billed daily. Look, clearly no lawyer can bill 32 hours in a 24 hour day. Duh. The practice has been for lawyers to bill for the time their firms spend on cases, i.e., sure, Franklin billed 32 hours for xxx date but a large portion of that time was for the associates in her firm. If Enos is right and this practice is illegal, it will affect most all of the attorneys that have been appointed for these cases.
If his goal is to eliminate the practice of billing for associate hours, that’s good if it is indeed what the state legislature wants. If he finds actual wrongdoing on the part of Judge Franklin or anyone else, kudos to him and hopefully the full force of the law will be applied. If he wants sympathy from me, well, I can give him some because Franklin refuses to talk to me about the issue and instead has hired a PR firm, Begala/McGrath, to speak for her. Funny how she was willing to meet with me when she was looking for votes. Go figure.
About Enos’ request for an independent prosecutor, I hope he isn’t holding his breath. Current Harris County DA Devon Anderson showed how she can circumvent that system by her handling of HPD detective Ryan Chandler’s case. We’ll have a separate article about that on BJP but just remember this – she gave Chandler’s case to a former HPOU Union rep. Well, actually she didn’t, she had her friend Judge Susan Brown do that. Like I said, more to come on this one.
Speaking of DA Anderson, it looks like she threw respected Family Law Judge Lynn Bradshaw-Hull under the bus in this article by Kiah Collier in the Houston Chronicle. That article is so one-sided bad that I had to look three times at the byline – Collier is a good reporter and most of the time plays it straight. But this one, wow. We’ll definitely respond to the article as it relates to Judge Bradshaw-Hull but why on earth would the DA throw a respected family law judge under the bus? I mean, we already have a weak slate of candidates, why help the Democrats?
Of course, I can’t really complain about that, being a Republican office holder of sorts (Precinct Chair) and publicly supporting Anderson’s Democratic opponent. On that note, I received a call today from a high profile Harris County Republican wanting to help Anderson’s opponent, Kim Ogg, behind the scenes. Seems like a lot of Harris County Republicans are waking up to the fact that the current DA is…well, let’s just say that some people don’t like corruption. Is that cool?
But perhaps the weirdest (funniest?) (most ironic?) thing I’ve read about the local Republican party is that Carl Pittman is making another run for Sheriff in 2016. This is especially weird (funny?) (ironic?) during a news cycle that features wife beating Ray Rice, formerly an NFL player of note. First, I see on my friend Karen Townsend’s Pondering Penguin that Pittman is running in 2016 and that of all the Republican groups out there, a Republican Women’s club had him as a speaker. Wow.
Then I see this advertisement for him when I log on to Facebook:
Geez freaking Louise!!!! Right is right and wrong is wrong, no matter who does it???? Are you kidding me??? I’d suggest that you read up on Mr. Pittman before you think he should be Sheriff. Sheesh.
I think I’ll hang around town this week. Too much happens when I’m gone!