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Texas Judge Loses Election, Decides To 'Wholesale' Release Defendants

This is an interesting take on the sore loser trope.

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Change is coming to the Texas judiciary.

Fifty-nine Republican jurists were swept out of office on Tuesday, replaced by Democratic candidates. One Texas jurist, Harris County Juvenile Court Judge Glenn Devlin, reacted to that news by releasing the defendants that appeared before him for detention hearings on Wednesday. He merely asked if they were planning on murdering anyone before releasing them. These juveniles were detained awaiting trial for a variety of offenses, including aggravated robbery charges. According to the Houston Chronicle, at least seven defendants were released that day.

Now the attorneys who practice there are left trying to puzzle out what message Devlin was trying to send with his behavior:

“He was releasing everybody,” said public defender Steven Halpert, who watched the string of surprising releases. “Apparently he was saying that’s what the voters wanted.”

The county’s chief public defender, Alex Bunin, had a similar take on what was going on:

“I’m not sure that I can wrap my arms around what he’s actually doing,” he said. “It’s a huge change and the only thing that has happened is that he was not elected so I don’t know what to attribute it to other than that.”

As one might imagine, local prosecutors were not thrilled with this sudden turn of events:

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“We oppose the wholesale release of violent offenders at any age,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a statement later. “This could endanger the public.”

Judge Devlin has recently come under fire for his jurisprudence that favors incarceration:

[Judge Devlin] is one of two juvenile court judges in Harris County whose track records favoring incarceration contributed heavily to doubling the number of kids Harris County sent to the Texas Juvenile Justice Department in recent years, even as those figures fell in the rest of the state.

Jay Jenkins, a policy attorney with the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, said the judge’s behavior reinforces the decision made by the voters:

“The voters of Harris County clearly wanted a change in the juvenile courts and Judge Devlin today is showing us why the voters may have wanted change,” he said. “We’re hoping now the juvenile courts can be a much fairer and more equitable place.”

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The defendants who were released are due back in court on January 4th, the day Natalia Oakes — Judge Devlin’s replacement — takes office.

headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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