In the Republican primary runoff for Harris County Criminal Court 10, I’ll be voting for Tonya Roland McLaughlin. This was not an easy decision. Her opponent, Dan Spjut, is very well qualified and as you will see below, has a unique story. In the end, it was a difference in our vision of judicial practice that swayed my vote to McLaughlin.
Dan Spjut
Dan is a native of Houston, is married to Judge Elsa Alcala, and has three children. He joined the Houston Police Department at the age of 20 and had a distinguished 27 year career which included stints as an undercover officer, in the joint intelligence center with the FBI, served on a special unit investigating other police officers, the gang division, and narcotics. While working full time at HPD, Dan received his undergraduate degree from the University of Houston and his law degree from the South Texas College of Law. After his retirement from HPD in 2007, he opened a private practice representing juveniles that have gotten in trouble.
He has a long history of working in Republican circles and has received the endorsements County Commissioners Radack and Cagle, Rep. Allen Fletcher, HPOU, Police Inc., and the three major slates, Hotze, Lowry, and Polland.
Click here to view his Conservative Coalition of Harris County questionnaire.
Tonya Rolland McLaughlin
Tonya was born in Linden, Texas and is married to Reid, who is a financial advisor. She received her undergraduate degree from Texas State University and her law degree from South Texas College of Law. After graduation from South Texas, she went to work at the Harris County District Attorney’s Office. After a relatively short stint as an ADA, in 2009 she left to open her own criminal defense practice because she wanted more opportunity and to be her own boss.
She has received endorsements from United Republicans, the C-Club, Texas Conservative View, Spring Branch Republicans, the Houston Chronicle, and Kingwood Tea Party.
Click here to view her Conservative Coalition of Harris County questionnaire.
From the campaign trail
As with all campaigns, supporters of each candidate have their reasons for not wanting the other person. The main charge that I’ve heard against Spjut from the McLaughlin supporters is that he is “not qualified”. They base this charge on the fact that Spjut practices juvenile law and CC-10 is a misdemeanor criminal court. In fact, McLaughlin features this charge on her website:
“Tonya Rolland McLaughlin isn’t just the most qualified candidate in this race — she’s the only qualified candidate.”-Houston Chronicle
I fell for that one during the first round, endorsing McLaughlin largely because “everyone” was repeating that. After interviewing Spjut and doing a bit of research, I find that charge to be false. The idea that a 27 year veteran of HPD, who has had his bar card 15 years and has represented criminal juvenile defendants for 7 of those years in his own practice, isn’t qualified to be a judge of a misdemeanor criminal court is ludicrous. Click here to read Don Hooper’s excellent analysis of what a county criminal court does.
The other charge from the McLaughlin supporters is that Spjut was a no show at most grassroot events during the primary. That one is very much true but it isn’t because he wasn’t interested in meeting with activists – he was actually balancing his family life and paying attention to his children. As I noted above, his wife is Judge Elsa Alcala. Judge Alcala is on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which is the highest court in Texas for criminal appeals. She works in Austin four days a week and Spjut chose to remain involved in his children’s activities rather than dump them off to relatives or care givers. I think that anyone should be commended for putting their children first.
About the only charges I’ve heard from Spjut supporters about McLaughlin is that she didn’t fulfill her three year commitment to the District Attorney’s Office and that she is overall too young. On the first charge, yes, that is true but largely irrelevant to voters. And on the second charge, that is also true but voters in Harris County have accepted young judges before with good results – Judge Ryan Patrick comes to mind. If you look at her success as an ADA and as a criminal defense attorney, I think that she is more in the mold of Judge Patrick than some wide-eyed kid.
Why I’m voting for McLaughlin
Ah, here is the tough one. I thought it was interesting that when I asked the question “how do you want to be remembered when you leave the bench”, both candidates said essentially the same thing – as a judge who was fair , treated everyone the same, and pursued justice.
One of the traits of being a long-time police officer is that you become jaded and tend to think that if someone is arrested, they are probably guilty. And after talking to Spjut, I think he falls into this category. It would be hard not to after what he saw during his undercover days. During our interview, he told me a couple of things that led me to this conclusion. The first was that the reason he chose to do juvenile law was that there was no possible way that he could be a criminal defense attorney after what he saw as a cop. Fair enough, I think that statement in and of itself wouldn’t disqualify him from being a judge but voters should be aware of it. The second thing was more direct and the reason that I am choosing to vote for his opponent.
I asked him what he thought a conservative philosophy for a criminal court meant. He related that during his early days as an officer, the courts were dominated by Democratic Party judges. Some of those judges believed the defendant over the word of the officers. This is a direct quote from that conversation:
You have to give more weight to the professional that is just doing his job. I mean, I have no reason to lie and say it was this guy’s or that guy’s (dope)
…
I just think some of those judges feel so sorry or for whatever reason, they just want to give the defendants every possible break they can and to me, if you’ve made a correct case, a legal case, you just follow the law.
Some of you might agree with his philosophy, giving more weight to the professional and not giving any breaks to defendants. I think that the system is so stacked against defendants and that there have been enough cases of professionals not telling the truth that we need judges who will not automatically accept the professional’s testimony at face value but are willing to probe and allow for the possibility that the professional does have an agenda. And while I fully believe Spjut when he says he wants to be remembered as fair, I think that even he may not realize how hard that will be for him to do.
So there you go. My vote goes to Tonya Rolland McLaughlin.