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Juanita Jackson Barner

You still have time to donate to the Democratic judges’ legal fund

Mar 2nd, 2023
by Charles Kuffner.
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Just a reminder:

See here for the background. That link takes you here, and while the in-person fundraiser mentioned there is now over, the Donate link remains. But due to a change in state law, you only have until March 8 to make a contribution. That’s a new statutory deadline for all judicial fundraising – it used to be the case that judges who were involved in lawsuits could continue past that deadline, but the law was changed in the last session, so here we are. Please give a few bucks if you can and help them all out. Thanks!

You can help Democrats being sued by election losers

Feb 13th, 2023
by Charles Kuffner.
7 comments

From the inbox, sent to me by former HD133 candidate Sandra Moore:

Below is a list of the judges and electeds being sued by the Republicans. These are nuisance suits but the Judges and Lina have had to hire attorneys to represent them against the claims. Marilyn and Tenesha have pro bono attorneys but the others are not allowed to be represented pro bono due to conflicts of interest. The judge hearing the case is in San Antonio which complicates matters re time to get there and back for hearings. The travel time alone for the attorneys will be in the thousands when ZOOM meetings are not allowed! The average attorney charges $500 per hour. The fee can’t be lowered due to “appearance of impropriety” issues. The judges listed as well as Lina have little in their campaign coffers. That’s how it is for the judges. One judge whose race is being challenged, David Fleisher, lives in 133. This is the state house district in which I ran back in 2018 and 2020.

I was on several endorsements interviews with some of these judges through a different organization. This is how I learned how little was in their campaign accounts. The Republicans picked the judges with some of the smallest accounts.

It is believed that the purpose of these suits is to drag out the cases, have judges dip into personal resources, and be exhausted financially and emotionally by the time of their next race.

The Harris County Democratic Party is NOT doing anything to assist the 22 electeds. If even one is bounced, Abbott could appoint a replacement for those in the criminal courts. Judges are being sued “in their individual capacity.” That is why each person named in a suit has to retain their own attorney.

CLUBS IN ACTION is trying to raise 95K to donate to them. The maximum that a judge can receive from a PAC is $5000, so that is the goal for each judge and for Lina. We all know that Lina received very little in campaign contributions, especially compared to Mealer.

During the election CIA knocked on 300,000 doors. WHD knocked on about 1500. We worked hard to make this happen. No one wants all this hard work to go to waste. So, if you are willing to make a donation to CIA that would be great.

I was invited to this meeting because of the effort to create and carry out block walking events.

If you decide to make a contribution a check can be sent to:

CLUBS IN ACTION
2504 Rusk St. #110
Houston, TX 77003.

CIA plans to hold a fundraiser, hopefully on Feb 19. But I will send out word when I learn more. There is a deadline of MARCH 8 to raise funds!!

[…]

1 Cause No. 2023-00964; Alexandra Mealer v. Lina Hidalgo. Alexander Mealer is represented by Elizabeth Alvarez. Judge Hidalgo is represented by Neal Manne.

2 Cause No. 2023-00925; Michelle Fraga v. Judge Christine Weems. Michelle Fraga is represented by Elizabeth Alvarez. Judge Weems is represented by John Raley.

3 Cause No. 2023-00924; Elizabeth Buss v. Judge David Fleischer. Elizabeth Buss is represented by Elizabeth Alvarez. Judge Fleischer is represented by John Raley.

4 Cause No. 2023-00841; Tami Pierce v. Judge DaSean Jones. Tami Pierce is representing herself with co-counsel, Paul Simpson. Judge Jones is represented by Oliver Brown.

5 Cause No. 2022-79328; Erin Lunceford v. Judge Tami Craft. Erin Lunceford is represented by Andy Taylor. Judge Craft is represented by Steve Kherker.

6 Cause No. 2023-00927; Bruce Bain v. Judge Corey Sepolio. Bruce Bain is represented by Elizabeth Alvarez. Judge Sepolio is represented by John Raley.

7 Cause No. 2023-00932; Chris Daniel v. Marilyn Burgess. Chris Daniel is represented by Elizabeth Alvarez. Clerk Burgess is represented by Neal Manne.

8 Cause No. 2023-00930; Mark Goldberg v. Judge Erika Ramirez. Mark Goldberg is represented by Elizabeth Alvarez. Judge Ramirez is represented by John Staley.

9 Cause No. 2023-00934; Brian Staley v. Judge Monica Singh. Brian Staley is represented by Elizabeth Alvarez. Judge Singh is represented by Anthony Drumheller.

10 Cause No. 2023-00936; Mark Montgomery v. Judge Kelley Andrews. Mark Montgomery is represented by Elizabeth Alvarez. Judge Andrews is represented by John Raley.

11 Cause No. 2023-00937; Matthew Dexter v. Judge Genesis Draper. Matthew Dexter is represented by Elizabeth Alvarez. Judge Draper is represented by John Raley.

12 Cause No. 2023-00952; Nile Copeland v. Judge Latosha Lewis Payne. Nile Copeland is represented by Elizabeth Alvarez. Judge Payne is represented by John Raley.

13 Cause No. 2023-00958; Rory Olsen v. Judge Jason Cox. Rory Olsen is represented by Jared Woodfill. Judge Cox is represented by Cris Feldman.

14 Cause No. 2023-00955; James Lombardino v. Judge Audrie Lawton-Evans. James Lombardino is represented by Jared Woodfill. Judge Lawton-Evans is represented by Anthony Drumheller.

15 Cause No. 2023-01202; Stan Stanart v. Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth. Stan Stanart is represented by Elizabeth Alvarez. Clerk Hudspeth is represented by Neal Manne.

16 Cause No. 2023-01066; Dan Simons v. Judge Sedrick Walker. Dan Simons is represented by Elizabeth Alvarez. Judge Walker is represented by John Raley.

17 Cause No. 2023-301111; Will Archer v. Judge James Horwitz. Will Archer is represented by Elizabeth Alvarez. Judge Horwitz is represented by John Raley.

18 Cause No. 2023-01103; Kyle Scott v. Carla Wyatt. Kyle Scott is represented by Elizabeth Alvarez. Ms. Wyatt is represented by Neal Manne.

19 Cause No. 2023-01076; Aaron Adams v. Judge LaShawn Williams. Aaron Adams is represented by Elizabeth Alvarez. Judge Williams is represented by Anthony Drumheller.

20 Cause No. 2023-01067; Dan Spjut v. Judge Juanita Jackson. Dan Spjut is represented by Elizabeth Alvarez. Judge Jackson is represented by John Raley.

21 Cause No. 2023-01052; Sartaj Bal v. Judge Toria Finch. Sartaj Bal is represented by Elizabeth Alvarez. Judge Finch is represented by Anthony Drumheller.

I will pass along information about the fundraiser when I have it. You can also contribute to any candidate you like directly – just google them or find their campaign Facebook page to get to a suitable Donate link for them. It’s deeply annoying that we have to do this – as a reminder, these cases are stinking piles of nothing and the losers pursuing them damn well know it – but it’s where we are. Let’s make it a little less hard for these Dems who clearly and correctly won their races.

2022 primary results: Harris County

Mar 2nd, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
11 comments

There were some issues, as there always are. Honestly, that’s one of the reasons I vote early – less time pressure in case something happens. There was also an issue with reporting the early ballots.

The Harris County Elections Administration has requested an extension on the 24-hour deadline to report the results of Tuesday’s primary elections, according to Texas Secretary of State John Scott.

State law requires that counties report results from both early voting and Election Day within 24 hours of the polls closing. Just after polls closed at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Scott’s office said that they were informed by Harris County election officials that the county would not be able to count and report the results.

“Harris County election officials have indicated to our office that the delay in ballot tabulation is due only to damaged ballot sheets that must be duplicated before they can be scanned by ballot tabulators at the central count location,” Scott said in a statement.

Failing to meet the deadline is a Class B misdemeanor, Scott’s office said.

“Our office stands ready to assist Harris County election officials, and all county election officials throughout the state, in complying with Texas Election Code requirements for accurately tabulating and reporting Primary Election results,” Scott said.

Don’t know what happened there, but I get a PDF of the results in my inbox every time they get posted to the web, and the first one arrived at 7:25, so whatever the delay was it didn’t take that long to fix it. Other places had their issues as well, often because of missing election judges. And I can’t wait to see how long it takes Potter County to finish its count.

County Judge Lina Hidalgo was headed for an easy win in her primary; she was at almost 70% of the vote in early voting. Erica Davis was just shy of 15%. Alexandra Mealer and Vidal Martinez were the two top Republicans. Marilyn Burgess was winning for District Clerk, but Carla Wyatt had a nearly identical lead for Treasurer over incumbent Dylan Osborne. You just can’t tell with these things sometimes.

Commissioner Adrian Garcia was also on the way to an easy win in Precinct 2, while Lesley Briones and Ben Chou were leading in Precinct 4. Jack Morman and Jerry Mouton were the top two for Precinct 2 on the Republican side.

Multiple District Court judges were losing their primaries. The ones who were leading included Hilary Unger, Chris Morton, Dedra Davis, Natalia Oakes, Leah Shapiro, and Frank Aguilar, the latter two by smaller margins that could vanish overnight. Amy Martin was trailing Melissa Morris by a small margin as well. Jason Luong was in second place and headed to a runoff against Andrea Beall, Chip Wells was in a similar position against Teresa Waldrop, while Greg Glass and Scott Dollinger were out of the running, with Glass’ opponents in a runoff and Tami Craft leading the field in Dollinger’s race. Veronica Nelson was above 50% in the three-way race for the new 482nd Criminal District Court.

The County Court judges were doing a bit better, with four out of seven leading their races. For the open benches, Juanita Jackson won in Criminal Court #10, Porscha Brown was above 50% for Criminal Court #3, and Monica Singh was leading for Civil Court #4, with second place too close to call between David Patronella and Treasea Treviño.

For the JP races, Sonia Lopez was leading in Precinct 1, with Steve Duble slightly ahead of Chris Watson for second place. Dolores Lozano won in Precinct 2, incumbent Lucia Bates was over 50% in Precinct 3. Roderick Rogers was winning in Precinct 5 and Angela Rodriguez was winning in Precinct 6.

That’s all I’ve got, with results trickling in. I’ll follow up tomorrow.

UPDATE: We’re going to be waiting for results for the rest of the day due to issues with the paper receipts and the printers.

Filing update: How many contested judicial primaries are there? (Part two)

Dec 20th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
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See here for Part One, which covered district and appellate court judges. Today we review the contested Democratic primaries for county court judges and justices of the peace.

County Civil Court At Law #4: Cynthia Castanon, David Patronella, Manpreet Monica Singh, and Treasea Trevino. This is the bench currently held by Judge Lesley Briones, who is running for County Commissioner, Precinct 4. I don’t know offhand if Judge Briones has stepped down yet or not, but in either case there will be someone appointed by Commissioners Court to fill in through the 2022 election. David Patronella is the incumbent Justice of the Peace in Precinct 1, Place 2.

County Criminal Court At Law #2: Incumbent Judge Ronnisha Bowman, Jannell Robles.

County Criminal Court At Law #3: Staci Biggar, Porscha Brown, Lorenzo Williams. The incumbent judge in this court is Judge Erica Hughes, who was just appointed as a US immigration court judge, and is thus not running for re-election.

County Criminal Court At Law #5: Carlos Aguayo, incumbent Judge David Fleischer.

County Criminal Court At Law #6: Selina Alaniz, incumbent Judge Kelley Andrews.

County Criminal Court At Law #7: Mauricio Vazquez, incumbent Judge Andrew Wright.

County Criminal Court At Law #8: Incumbent Judge Franklin Bynum, Erika Ramirez.

County Criminal Court At Law #10: Juanita Jackson, Thuy Le. Jackson appears to have been a candidate for a county criminal court at law in 2010. Incumbent Judge Lee Harper Wilson is not running for re-election. Which is a good thing, as he is not worth anyone’s vote.

County Criminal Court At Law #14: Je’Rell Rogers, incumbent Judge David Singer.

County Probate Court #2: Pamela Medina, incumbent Judge Michael Newman.

Justice of the Peace, Precinct 1 Place 2: Ron Campana, Steve Duble, Victor Lombrana, Sonia Lopez, Jonathan Preston, Chris Watson. This is the JP position that is currently held by David Patronella, who is running for County Court At Law #4.

Justice of the Peace, Precinct 2 Place 2: Dolores Lozano, Blair McClure. Incumbent JP George Risner is running for Commissioners Court in Precinct 2.

Justice of the Peace, Precinct 3 Place 2: Incumbent JP Lucia Bates, Ashleigh Roberson, Herbert Alexander Sanchez.

Justice of the Peace, Precinct 5 Place 2: Eman Afshar, Roderick Rogers. This is a Republican-held position, with the incumbent JP being Jeff Williams. Israel Garcia won the Precinct 5 Position 1 race as a Democrat in 2020. Eman Afshar filed for that position on the ballot but was subsequently disqualified after questions were raised about the petition signatures he submitted as part of his ballot application. However, he remained on the ballot because of the later date on which he was disqualified.

Justice of the Peace, Precinct 6 Place 2: Luis Garza, incumbent JP Angela Rodriguez. JP Rodriguez is the daughter of the longtime previous JP, who was appointed to the position in 2018 following his retirement and was unopposed for election that year.

Finally, I have realized that I missed one race that belonged in the previous post:

208th Criminal District Court: Beverly Armstrong, incumbent Judge Greg Glass, Kim McTorry.

And now you’re as up to date as I can make you at this time. As before, if I didn’t list the race it’s because the incumbent has no primary opponent, and if I don’t link to a webpage or Facebook/Instagram page, it’s because I didn’t find one with a basic Google search. I’m sending out the judicial Q&As and look forward to publishing a bunch of responses from these candidates. Finally, Murray Newman has a few notes about some of these candidates as well.

Endorsement watch: County courts

Oct 16th, 2010
by Charles Kuffner.
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There are four County Civil Courts At Law and 15 County Criminal Courts At Law, with the Chron endorsements for all of them being spread over three days. Starting with the civil courts, the Democratic nominees received endorsements in two of the four races.

County Civil Court at Law No. 3: Damon Crenshaw, the Democratic challenger, would bring 25 years’ experience in small business litigation, representing individuals and corporations.

County Civil Court at Law No. 4: Bruce Mosier, the Democratic challenger, receives our endorsement for this bench, along with that of the Association of Women Attorneys and the Mexican-American Bar Association.

Here are the relevant Q&As:

Damon Crenshaw (note: from the primary)

Bruce Mosier

Erica Graham, Civil Court At Law #1

Cheryl Elliott Thornton, Civil Court At Law #2 (note: from the primary)

In Part One of the Criminal Courts At Law races, Dems took four of eight endorsements:

County Criminal Court No. 2: Democratic challenger Mary Connealy Acosta has 15 years’ experience as a criminal defense attorney and is intimately familiar with the operations of the Harris County criminal courts system.

County Criminal Court No. 3: Veteran Houston criminal defense attorney Judith Snively is the stronger candidate for this bench.

County Criminal Court No. 4: Democrat Alfred “Al” Leal was a county criminal court judge in Court 9 for 12 years.

County Criminal Court No. 6: Democratic challenger Denise Spencer, an experienced prosecutor in New York City and Fort Bend County, is our choice to bring change and new ideas to these misdemeanor courts.

And in Part 2, Dems took two of seven:

County Criminal Court No. 9: Democratic criminal defense attorney Juanita Jackson Barner is our choice to enforce the law while helping youthful offenders make positive lifestyle choices.

County Criminal Court No. 13: In a match-up between well qualified candidates, Democratic candidate Dennis Slate, a City of Houston and Pearland associate municipal judge, is our choice to fill this open bench.

For whatever the reason, I only got a handful of Q&A responses from this group of candidates:

Judith Snively

Al Leal

Juanita Jackson Barner

Mark Diaz, Criminal Court At Law #11

Cheryl Harris Diggs, Criminal Court At Law #12

Dennis Slate (note: from the primary, but an updated Q&A from him is in the queue for next week)

Toni Martinez Ingverson, Criminal Court At Law #15

All Democratic candidates are listed here. Q&As for Republican candidates are here.

Judicial Q&A: Juanita Jackson Barner

Oct 14th, 2010
by Charles Kuffner.
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(Note: I am running a series of Q&As for Democratic judicial candidates on the November ballot. I am running these responses in the order that I receive them from the candidates. These Q&As are primarily intended for candidates who were not in contested primaries. You can see those earlier Q&As, as well as all the ones in this series and all my recorded interviews for this cycle, on my 2010 Elections page.)

1. Who are you, and what are you running for?

My name is Juanita Jackson Barner. I am a criminal defense attorney with over 12 years experience. I am running for Harris County Criminal Court #9.

2. What kind of cases does this court hear?

County Criminal Courts of Law hear Class B and A misdemeanors, which includes such offenses as driving with license invalid, burglary of a motor vehicle, assault, animal cruelty, driving while intoxicated, and unlawful possession of a firearm, just to name a few.

3. Why are you running for this particular bench?

County Court #9 has consistently wasted taxpayers dollars by handing out unnecessarily harsh jail sentences for minor non-violent offenses. The court’s policy of setting specific punishments for particular offenses creates a “one size fits all” system which does not take into consideration the individual case specifics and facts. Judges should treat each case individually and judge it on it’s individual merits. In 2004, County Court #9 became the first court to no longer allow defendants to make payment agreements on their court costs. Instead, Court #9 requires all defendants to pay all court costs and fines in full before final sentencing or the judge will increase the sentence to an additional 10 days in jail. Such a policy creates further hardship and punishment for the defendant and their family. Essentially it criminalizes poverty and potentially creates a greater economic burden on our already overcrowded county jail system. Our courts should not be designed so that poor people have different outcomes than those with money.

4. What are your qualifications for this job?

Prior to becoming an attorney, I had a successful career in higher education administration which allowed me to develop strong administrative, fiscal and supervisory skills. After obtaining my law degree, I began my legal career as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Texas recovering funds on behalf of Texas citizens that had been defrauded by unscrupulous businesses. A few years later, I began my own law practice specifically to provide affordable legal services to low and moderate income people. I began as a plaintiff attorney, but after realizing the need, I decided to dedicate my practice criminal law. To date, I have handled over 950 criminal cases in Harris and surrounding counties. I am in Harris County courts daily and have experience in every criminal court in the county.

5. Why is this race important?

This race is important because it is time to stop the madness in our county courts. Throwing people in jail for minor non-violent crimes is simply not working. Every year our jails are more and more overcrowded with young people, non-violent offenders and the mentally-ill. The system that has been in place over the last 16 years has done nothing but create a greater burden on our county tax dollars.

6. Why should people vote for you in November?

As someone who was raised here in Houston, I understand the needs of the citizens of Harris County. I care about the people of Harris County because this is where my home and my heart is. I am highly committed to making our county safer for everyone. I strongly believe that criminals should be accountable for their actions. However, I also realize that simply being tough on crime and throwing people in jail is not enough. I will develop programs and alternatives to educate young offenders and deter crime in our communities. Furthermore, I know there are innocent people that walk into the courtroom every day, and quite often many of our current judges have forgotten that fact. I understand the real meaning of justice. Once elected, I will treat every accused person with respect and dignity. County Court #9 will be a level and just playing field. I will require law enforcement, prosecutors and defense attorneys to follow the law. Finally, sometimes even decent hard-working people get accused and can’t afford an attorney. I believe justice should not be about money. People should not have to decide between housing or food in order to have good legal representation. Our courts should not be designed so that poor people have different outcomes than those with money.

One person can make a difference and I am the one that will start the step in the right direction.