Conflict Controversy & Perez's Perception

Alyssa Perez did an interview with KTSM yesterday about the fact that the Council of Judges asked the County Attorney to give them an opinion on a potential conflict of interest with candidate for the 210th District Court Alyssa Perez.

The seat is currently held by her uncle, Judge Gonzalo Garcia.

So here is the situation, Perez represents CLEAT, which is the law enforcement union. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I'm a union guy myself and I can tell you Perez has always done a great job and has good reputation acting in that capacity as far as I know. Never heard a single criticism about her as the union lawyer and if I ran a union, she'd be the one I'd hire to represent my members.

She's also a part-time fill-in jail magistrate. Honestly, I don't know anything about whether she's doing a good job or a bad job at that. She's a fill-in, so how much harm could she possibly do. You usually hear about the bad ones, so since I haven't heard anything about her being a magistrate, I'm gonna assume she does well.

I gather from her comments at the Eastside Democrats that she's also a criminal defense attorney in private practice. From what I was able to dig up on the county website, it looks like the vast majority of her work comes from "appointments". By her own admission judicial appointments are a "substantial part" of her practice.

Appointments are when someone can't afford an attorney of their own, so an attorney is appointed to represent that person and the tax payers pay for it. There is no issue with that, appointments are an important part of the judicial process, especially in a community like El Paso.

Independently there is nothing wrong with any of those lines of work.

The problem potentially is when you put them all together. So law enforcement goes to a court and asks for a warrant, or brings in someone they have arrested to the magistrate to have their rights read to them and bond is set. At that stage of the process, she represents the officers that are coming before her, and she's acting as a judge. Remember, she works for CLEAT, and the CLE part of CLEAT stands for Combined Law Enforcement. As in all of them as an organization, irrespective if she represents them as individuals.

If that isn't a blatant conflict, it is at the very least, the appearance of a conflict. I don't think there is any rational human on the planet that wouldn't think that there isn't at least an appearance of a conflict in that situation.

Then, she is appointed to represent the indigent, who were arrested by law enforcement. Law enforcement conducted the investigation that led to the arrest of the person she's supposed to be representing. Alyssa Perez is simultaneously serving as legal counsel for the law enforcement members AND serving as legal counsel for the person they are accusing of a crime.

At the same time. I don't see how that could NOT be a conflict. But again, it is at the very least, the appearance of a conflict.

And therein lies the problem for Perez with voters. If this is any demonstration of what she thinks is okay, then voters are going to be really turned off by her. The only thing we lay people who didn't go to law school have to judge a candidate on, is our vague interpretation on whether or not we feel they will be fair.

I don't know anyone that thinks this type of situation would be fair. Seriously...she LITERALLY has the PD union head sitting at her desk...IN THIS INTERVIEW!

Theres no problem with her being a union lawyer.

Theres no problem with her being a part-time fill-in magistrate.

Theres no problem in taking appointed cases.

There is a big problem, in my non-legal opinion, with all of them going on simultaneously.

So lets just take a quick breath for a moment and go back to what I said about there isn't even supposed to be the appearance of a conflict. I could quote the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct 1.06 through 1.09 (pages 27-37) if I wanted to, but hey I'm not a lawyer right?

So lets hear from an attorney, far more learned of an individual than I.

Lets hear from Alyssa Perez HERSELF about avoiding even the "perception that something is not correct" in the KTSM interview, shall we?



Based on Perez's own words on the matter, I think she clearly underscores there's at least a perception problem, and if that is the case, then she shouldn't be defending the indigent or acting as a magistrate.

************************************

But now lets talk about the politics of all of this.

First, I don't get where she comes off acting like its a problem that she is facing scrutiny. If you didn't want a healthy examination of your candidacy, which is a NORMAL part of any campaign, you shouldn't have run. And the fact that her uncle is the current judge and he held off filing until she could file at the last minute didn't go unnoticed, so of course a perceived effort to bequeath a seat to a relative is going to garner some attention.

If she didn't want the scrutiny, then maybe politics isn't for her.

Second, she questions the timing of the issue with the Council of Judges. She may have a point. I can't understand why this hasn't come up before because it seems like such an obvious problem.

Hell, I'm surprised the tax payers have't had to foot the bill to defend a lawsuit on this issue yet. Seems like an attorney would certainly call this into question and probably could have a lot of potential clients who have found themselves in a bad spot because of this situation.

But lets look at the other side of what she's saying when she questions the timing of the issue. To me it sounds a lot like she's saying that she's entitled to special treatment because she's running for office, as though her running for office should take precedence over whether or not the taxpayers of El Paso County are in a compromised position because of the possibility of a conflict.

"Politics as usual" is something Perez said she hopes this isn't as she was referring to the Council of Judge's action to ask for a legal opinion from the County Attorney's Office. She's kinda implying that it is "politics as usual" by that statement, and when you listen to the entire interview, she makes that point a little more sharply in the full interview. I'm not sure how the other judges are going to feel about the implication.

But the mere fact that she says "politics as usual in the courthouse" is a pretty significant claim that things in the courthouse are politicized.





The interview in its entirety was posted at the bottom of the story, so I missed it the first time I read it. But you should watch it in its entirety because there's some interesting stuff in it - which is where I got the portion of the first video I posted.



I'm sure there will be some fall out because of all of this.