My Day

The Lykos Administration took effect last week with District Attorney Ken Magidson extending the professional courtesy to Jim Leitner of hiring him on to do Pat Lykos' bidding prior to her taking office on January 1, 2009.

Yesterday, all District Attorney employees learned the drill: Leitner sent you an e-mail that invited you for a "meeting" where he told you that the Lykos Administration would not be re-hiring you as an employee. By the end of yesterday's count, he had taken out four investigators and one prosecutor.

So when work started today, all prosecutors knew that if they got an e-mail from Leitner, it was time to say goodbye to their jobs.

I got my e-mail around noon-ish while I was at lunch. I was having lunch with a close friend who knew that the e-mail may be coming.

Leitner misspelled my name, which I thought was a bit rude. I mean, seriously, if you are going to can somebody from their job after 9.5 years, you could at least spell their name right, couldn't you?

He asked me to meet with him at 3 p.m., which conflicted with my schedule since I had a witness meeting on a murder case at 2 p.m. that kept me out of the office.

"I've got a meeting at 2 p.m.," I responded. "Can you fire me earlier?"

He didn't respond.

But when I got back to the Office from lunch, as luck would have it, he was at the elevator bank.

"Can we go ahead and get this sh*t done with now?" I asked him.

"You want to come up now?" he asked.

"Why not?" I said.

We rode in the elevator up to the 6th floor. He refused to look at me.

We walked into his Office, where former-Judge Roger Bridgwater was working.

Jim started fumbling with his desk, saying he didn't know where "the letter" was. Judge Bridgwater told him it was in his desk. Jim ultimately found it.

It was a letter from Lykos thanking me for my service, but letting me know that my services were not needed under her administration. I found it a bit disingenuous considering the letter she had sent all District Attorney employees after the Republican primary run-off where she told us all that as long as we didn't campaign for Bradford that our jobs would be okay.

Wow. Never trust a politician. Who knew?

So, anyway, I read my "thanks for trying 55 felony cases more than I will ever try" letter from Lykos and calmly put it back in the envelope.

I smiled at Leitner and Judge Bridgwater.

"Good luck guys," I said. "It's a great job."

I shook Judge Bridgwater's hand and walked out the door.

And thus ended my career in public service.

By the way, for the 3 of you who may not have known. My name is Murray Newman.

And as of January 1st, 2009. I will be a member of the Criminal Defense Bar.

On a personal note, do you want to know what the most hurtful thing of the whole ordeal was?

The Old Goat didn't even have the courtesy of signing the letter "Snookems".

The 178th District Court Judicial Race

The race for the 178th District Court has the newest Judge in the CJC, Republican candidate Judge Roger Bridgwater, defending his bench against Democratic attorney David Mendoza, Jr. (who does not have a website listed for him on the Harris County Democratic Party webpage).

I'm at a bit of a disadvantage here, because I don't know the first thing about Mr. Mendoza. I've checked out the internet for information with no luck, and I actually don't recognize him from his picture on the Democratic Party's website. I will say that after having been around that courthouse (in one form or another) since 1996, that it would be somewhat unusual for me to not recognize an attorney who practices there regularly.

But, stranger things have happened, and I don't mean to sell Mr. Mendoza short. If you know him and have dealt with him, please let us know your thoughts on him.

Judge Bridgwater, on the other, I have known pretty much since I first started working in Harris County. However, for the vast amount of time, obviously, I knew him as a member of the Defense Bar.

My experience with Roger Bridgwater as a defense attorney is one of great admiration and respect. He was one of the members of the Defense Bar that you could take every representation that he made to the State as the 100% truth. He was honest as the day was long, and he was a formidable adversary in trial. He was very soft-spoken, but prosecutors knew that they had better listen when he spoke.

There was actually something very Judicial about Roger Bridgwater long before he became a judge.

Judge Bridgwater has only been on the bench since July of last year. As the "rookie" Judge, he was virtually guaranteed an opponent, which is shame, because I expect great things out of Judge Bridgwater in his continued tenure.

I don't have much to report on his first year in Office, which is to be expected.

He hasn't had any major high profile cases or rulings that he's tackled quite yet, and he is probably considered to still be "transitioning" from the role of "attorney" to "judge".

If Judge Bridgwater is still in a "transition period", it is one that I expect he will come through with flying colors.

He's got my vote, and I hope to see him on the Bench for many more years to come.