(Note: As I have done in past elections, I am running a series of Q&As for Democratic judicial candidates. I ran a series of these for candidates in contested primaries, and now these are for the rest of the candidates. I am running these responses in the order that I receive them from the candidates. Much more information about Democratic candidates, including links to interviews and judicial Q&As, can be found on Erik Manning’s spreadsheet.
Justice Amy Guerra
1. Who are you and in which court do you preside?
My name is Amy Guerra, and I am the incumbent justice on the Texas First Court of Appeals, Place 5.
2. What kind of cases does this court hear?
The First Court of Appeals is a general jurisdiction intermediate appellate court which decides appeals and original proceedings from trial courts throughout its ten-county district. The First Court of Appeals district includes the following ten Texas counties: Austin, Brazoria, Chambers, Colorado, Fort Bend, Galveston, Grimes, Harris, Waller, and Washington. It hears all types of cases: criminal and civil, including personal injury, family law (divorces, custody disputes, and parental rights terminations), probate (wills and trusts), business disputes, election issues, and juvenile cases.
3. What have been your main accomplishments during your time on this bench?
I have issued opinions in nearly 600 appeals/original proceedings and participated as a panel member in the disposition of hundreds more cases in my nearly six years on this bench.
One of my greatest accomplishments, so far, is that each of my over 250 signed majority opinions on the merits has been 100% unanimous, which shows I work well with all my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I do so by following the sage advice of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg: I disagree without being disagreeable. I find compromise when necessary, yet I stand my ground and insist on deciding cases fairly, impartially, and swiftly.
I am also proud to have hosted 19 student interns so far, including many students from the American Bar Association’s Judicial Internship Opportunity Program (JIOP), which places underprivileged and underrepresented law students in judicial internships throughout the country. And I am the first state appellate court judge in Texas to have hosted a JIOP intern.
4. What do you hope to accomplish in your courtroom going forward?
Every day, I search for more ways to improve my eƯiciency and productivity, and I will continue serving with integrity and impartiality in deciding cases without fear or favor.
5. Why is this race important?
I often say this is the most important court most people have never heard of. It is important because the court of appeals is often the last word on many issues. The higher courts (the Texas Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals) choose which cases they want to decide, whereas the intermediate courts of appeals (such as the First Court of Appeals) must decide every case filed. Therefore, we set much of the precedent for the trial courts in this ten-county district to follow in matters that aƯect people’s daily lives. A few examples: We decide whether a person keeps their children in a custody dispute, whether a person gets compensated if they are injured at work or in an accident, and we decide criminal appeals, among many other issues.
6. Why should people vote for you in November?
I have proudly served as your justice on the First Court of Appeals, Place 5, for nearly six years. I was elected in 2020 after practicing law for nearly twenty years, handling highly complex cases from start to finish, in state and federal trial and appellate courts throughout Texas and other states, being named a Texas Super Lawyer in Business Litigation, becoming the first Hispanic partner at my law firm, and being the youngest sitting judge on the Houston Municipal Court when I was originally appointed in 2005 at age 28, where I served part-
time at night and on weekends and holidays, while simultaneously practicing law full-time at a law firm that had the highest billable hour requirement in the city. So, I am no stranger to hard work.
I have proven that I have superior judicial temperament and earned the respect of my peers. Since joining the First Court of Appeals in 2021, I was named Judge of the Year in 2023, I won the 2026 State Bar Judicial Preference Poll (a poll that asks Texas lawyers which candidate they prefer) with more than twice as many votes as my opponent, and I received more votes than any other court of appeals candidate in the entire state of Texas.
My opponent has no civil court experience, and civil court cases make up more than 70% of the court’s docket.
I humbly ask for your support for my re-election so I may continue serving our community by promoting public safety, upholding the rule of law, and ensuring everyone’s rights no matter who you are or where you’re from.
I promise to continue deciding cases impartially, swiftly and fairly, and to do so with respect and integrity.
PREVIOUSLY:
Judge Damiane Dianne Curvey, 280th Family District Court
Judge M. Monica Singh, Harris County Civil Court at Law #4
Judge Cory Sepolio, 269th Civil District Court
Samantha Davis, 313th Juvenile District Court
Judge Melissa Morris, 263rd Criminal District Court
Judge Toria J. Finch, Harris County Criminal Court at Law #9
Judge Linda Marie Dunson, 309th Family District Court
Judge Kelley Andrews, Harris County Criminal Court at Law #6
Judge Angela Lancelin, 245th Family District Court
Judge Shannon Baldwin, Harris County Criminal Court at Law #4
Julie Countiss, First Court of Appeals, Place 4
Judge Lori Chambers Gray, 262nd Criminal District Court
Judge Teresa Waldrop, 312th Family District Court
Judge Veronica Nelson, 482nd Criminal District Court
From the primaries:
Judge Kristen Hawkins, Supreme Court Justice, Place 7
Sarah Beth Landau, Chief Justice of the Fourteenth Court of Appeals
Judge Tanya Garrison, 157th Civil District Court
Julia Maldonado, 183rd Criminal District Court
Judge Brian Warren, 209th Criminal District Court
Judge Josh Hill, 232nd Criminal District Court
Judge Leah Shapiro, 315th Juvenile District Court
Judge James Horwitz, Harris County Probate Court #4
Ebony Williams, Harris County Civil Court at Law #2
Judge Andrew Wright, Harris County Criminal Court at Law #7
Vote for me because “I won the 2026 State Bar Judicial Preference Poll […] with more than twice as many votes as my opponent.”
COMMENT: You can’t blame a candidate for touting her popularity among the people that matter most to the particular office, here attorneys. In this Bar-sponsored straw poll, she outdid her opponent with a margin of 575 to 287 for Jessica Caird (R).
But that’s still only 575 votes in a district that spans 10 counties. Fewer than 1,000 participated in the preference poll. This may not be so bad for a run-of-the-mill pre-election poll, but it is less than 1% of attorneys licensed in Texas, so the “turnout” is abysmal and can’t be deemed representative of this professional group.
Justice Guerra is an incumbent with name recognition among some attorneys. Her opponent is a criminal law attorney with much appellate experience also, but not an incumbent. Few outside her practice areas will have known her as a practicing attorney.
Suffice it to suggest that attorneys will not decide this judicial race in any event. They are not that numerous in the electorate as a whole. Most voters will vote for Guerra based on her party affiliation. Being a female won’t help because her opponent is a female also.
But the first appellate district is competitive, and party affiliation may not be enough.
So the key to winning is to acquire additional votes that cannot be taken for granted based on partisan allegiance alone. Why should non-Dems vote for her?
THOUGHT & BACK STORY DIVERSITY
A good argument here is that viewpoint and experiential diversity is desirable and that the First Court of Appeals currently only has 2 Democrats (out of 9). What you otherwise tend to get is groupthink, and that undermines the adversarial system and the pursuit of justice. That is a problem for all-Dems courts as much as for the all-GOP version.
One well-established wisdom is that dissenters have a beneficial influence – and advance the quality of adjudication and the resultant case law a/k/a jurisprudence – by helping to keep the majority intellectually honest.
But this candidate underplays and arguably undermines the vital role that the minority could (and arguably should) play in a collegial body in which the other party holds sway.
Writing occasional concurrences and dissents would be preferable to giving in for the sake of collegial consensus and not rocking the boat. And on motions for en banc rehearing, it would not even be necessary to write a separate opinion (which means extra work) to at least signal that the disposition of a particular appeal (or a particular legal or procedural issue in it) is not a foregone conclusion, and that the losing side may have a valid point also.
MEASURING APPELLATE PERFORMANCE: QUANTITY & EFFICIENCY, AND WHAT ELSE?
The OCA keeps track of majority merits, per curiam, and dissenting opinions by each COA and each member in its annual reporting. That’s a good thing.
The incidence of divergent writings gives some indication of the degree to which an appellate judge thinks and decides cases independently, relative to his or her peers on the same court and on other intermediate courts. And for purposes of an objective assessment, it is not necessary to evaluate the substance of the jurisprudential disagreements (which can’t be completely objective).
Alas, with respect to comparative productivity, the most recent annual statistics are difficult to interpret because of the huge turnover caused by the 2024 Republican sweep.
Unfortunately, the reporting period is based on the fiscal year, while the new justices take office on January 1 and inherit a portfolio of pending appeals that are in the pipeline and (presumably) in various stages of work-up by staff attorneys and completion.
Without context or comparison, a claim to have written 300 or 600 or 900 opinions is not really useful to voters. The cumulative number of opinions is necessarily correlated with the number of years on the court. And the number is much higher than it is for SCOTX justices because many appeals are resolved in a more routine manner since the intermediate courts don’t have discretionary review (but use other mechanisms to reduce their workload, which include dismissals for technical defects or procedural failures). All dismissals get opinions too (mem. ops), but they are parsimonius, often amounting to no more than one or two pages.
For what it’s worth, here is the tally of merits opinions, concurs and dissents
Chief Justice Terry Adams 38 0 0 0
Justice Julie Countiss1 16 0 0 0
Justice Peter Kelly2 11 0 6 0
Justice Gordon Goodman3 12 0 1 0
Justice Sarah Beth Landau4 15 0 1 0
Justice Richard F. Hightower5 10 0 0 0
Justice Veronica Rivas-Molloy 54 0 1 0
Justice Amparo Monique Guerra 33 0 0 0
Justice David Gunn6 47 2 1 0
Justice Jennifer Caughey7 23 1 0 0
Justice Kristin Guiney8 28 0 0 0
Justice Clint Morgan9 23 3 1 0
Justice Andrew Johnson10 41 0 0 0
Justice Susanna Dokupil11 27 0 0 0
TOTAL 378 6 11 0
The tally of merits opinions (first column) varies much because justices joined and left the court during the reporting period as indicated by footnotes adjoining the names.
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Vote for me because “I received more votes than any other court of appeals candidate in the entire state of Texas.”
COMMENT: The raw vote total is only meaningful within the same appellate district because the appellate districts (and their courts) different vastly in size (number of voters / number of positions).
The raw tallies will also change with the inaugural election of the current members of the new statewide 15th Court of Appeals, all of whom were originally appointed by Governor Abbott. All other intermediate appellate courts are regional with 1st and 14th being based on the same ten counties, i.e., overlapping geographic jurisdiction. Because the district is so large, it takes many more votes to get elected than is true of districts with three-member appellate courts. Conversely, a losing contestant in the 1st or 14th appellate district could easily have won with the same number of votes in a small (rural) appellate district.