The Texas Supreme Court

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The Texas Supreme Court is the main and the highest court in the Texas state for civil matters. The court is mandated in hearing the appeals of verdicts in civil cases from the lower courts. Thus it acts as the last resort court as its final verdicts are not an issue to review by any other court in the Texas state. The Supreme Court was founded by the Constitution of the Republic of Texas in 1836. This court comprises of nine justices who typically meet in Austin, Texas in a building situated on the state Capitol grounds. The Texas state has undergone some major judicial reforms since 1980 whereby major political party’s frontrunners in the court introduced some ideologies that had and still have some significant influence on the Texas courts (Liberato & Fohn, 2015). This paper focuses on Texas’s judicial reforms experiences by some leaders for the previous two decades. Also, it presents the major leaders that led to some ideologies that shaped or reshaped the courts.

Over the past years, Texas has existed as an exemplary state in foreshadowing a new period in the judicial elections. Texas is regarded as the first state which experienced some widespread problems industrialized in the judicial elections in the 1980s. During this period, there was a prolonged judicial scandal, Supreme Court elections developed to become a battleground for petitioners as well as business interests. Also, some huge sums of money were spent in the Supreme Court races (Hoffman, 2015). Intense competition increased among the political parties fighting for the control of the state judiciary. Moreover, the demands from the marginal groups to have a greater representation in the courts was high.

In the start of the 1980s, there was a form of sweeps in the court elections whereby a considerable number of judges were defeated for reappointment, the reason being that they were in a different party association from the famous contestant at the topmost of the ticket. All this was happening in the trial court elections, and it started primarily in the Dallas County and later spread to the other counties, for example, Harris County (McCloskey & Levinson, 2016). The Republicans managed to achieve like all the top major seats in the judicial elections in Dallas County. This resulted in the remaining judges who were of the Democratic Party to change their party-political affiliation and joined the Republican Party. It is clear that these judges were doing all this for political survival and their well-being.

In the case of Texas, the judicial elections happened to be once an understated, inexpensive and dormant. The judges were rarely defeated for there existed no significant opposition. In some instances, some judges resigned before their serving terms were over, and this enabled the governor to find their replacements. If it happened that the open seat was being contested, the State Bar Poll existed as the decisive element in the contest (Pacelle, 2018). The State Bar Poll was regarded as the key to some endorsements for example by the newspapers and to gain the support of the courthouse legislators. In the 1970s, things started to change in judicial politics in Texas. For example in 1976, a particular lawyer who was not famously contested for the Supreme Court position in Texas, against a distinguished incumbent individual who in the State Bar poll, had won by a 90 percent margin. Surprisingly the infamous lawyer defeated the incumbent one despite a disbarment suit which was filed against him by a State Bar grievance committee. The committee accused him of having committed some fifty-three violations, and also he was later added another twenty more accusations.

The committee had an aim of barring him from contesting. It can be thought that the lawyer’s name, Yarbrough, which was a famous one, possible confused the voters since there was another individual with that name and had contested twice for the governor’s seat and had definite ideas. However, this individual by the name Yarbrough who elected served for a short period before being accused with some criminal charges. This reason plus the threats from the legislative resulted to his resignation. His case consented a great lesson that, the name identification was a crucial factor as it could lead in a particular individual being elected to the judicial position in Texas (Baum, 2018). The case of a petitioners’ lawyer known as Robert Campbell who contested against a famous judge for the Supreme Court seat in Texas is another excellent example. There were some allegations that Campbell benefited from an individual called Earl Campbell from the University of Texas. This individual had won a trophy in the preceding fall, and this might have resulted in the confusion between the two individuals. Therefore, these cases prove that an identifiable name could place an individual on the judicial bench in Texas.

Since many court justices have served the 1980s up to the present times, the Texas court system. Some of these court justices include the following: Cread L. Ray who served as a subordinate judge of the Supreme Court from 1980 to 1990. Andrew Jackson who was a subordinate judge of the Supreme Court between 1964 and 1982. Jackson later became the court’s Chief Justice in 1982 and served up to 1985. James Prince Wallace is another served as an associate justice between 1981 and 1988. Ruby Sondock was an Associate justice in 1982 who was appointed to the bar Governor William Clement after the death of James Denton who was also an associate justice. Upon her appointment, Ruby became the first woman to hold such a distinct position in Harris County (Epstein et al., 2015). She managed to complete Denton’s serving term which ended in 1982, and subsequently, she did not seek reelection but returned to the 234th District court where she was reelected without opposition.

Other associates justices of the Supreme Court comprised of Ted Robertson who served between 1982 and 1989, William Kilgarlin who served between 1983 and 1988, and Raul Gonzalez between 1984 and 1998. Also, there was John Hill Jr. who existed as the chief justice of the Court from 1985 to 1988. Although Hill had managed to raise a total of one million dollars to fund his campaign, he felt the system was scandalous as it allowed a lot of contributions from the lawyers who had some cases with the judges. Therefore according to Hill, this practice was not active as it could result in the election of ineffective leaders of the courts. Eventually, he resigned from his position to lead a campaign for the abolishment of the electoral process for the justices of the Supreme Court in courtesy of a mutual appointment.

The judicial system in Texas especially the Supreme Court was filled with a lot of scandals which mainly involved money, for instance, the individuals required money to run for the judicial seats, and thus some could engage in some naughty actions to obtain the money. It existed that to get justice money was to be involved. This is the reason that made Hill come up with a proposal of distinction selection of judiciaries as a substitute for the existing partisan selection of judges. Hill existed as a profoundly and distinguished figure in the Texas politics compared to the other Supreme Court Judges, and therefore he recommended himself as the judicial reforms leader (Monroe & Mitchell, 2015). However, as time progressed it is evident that the court system seemed to have undergone some fundamental reforms which reshaped it in various ways. This is attributed to the election of distinct and reformists court leaders who have seen the court system making some huge moves. An excellent example of such leaders is Nathan Hecht.

The present-day Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court is Nathan Hecht, and he is the twenty-seventh. He has been elected six times in the courts, first in 1988, where he was elected as justice, and in 2014, he was elected as the Chief Justice. Hecht is regarded as a member of Texas court system who has served for the longest time in Texas courts history. Throughout his tenure, many reforms are apparent for example he has masterminded some amendments to the rules of governance, practice as well as procedure in the Texas courts. Also, he exists as an active member in the court’s determination of ensuring that the Texas citizens who are existing below the poverty level, together with the other vulnerable groups in the society, have the proper access to the essential civil legal amenities. Therefore Nathan Hecht exists as an exemplary court leader with some essential ideologies that have reshaped and are continuing to reshape the courts. His serving term as the Supreme Court Chief Justice ends in December 2020.

There exist other judicial court leaders who have transformed Texas’s courts positively in some ways. They include Phil Johnson, a justice who was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2005, Eva Guzman, appointed to the bar in 2010, Jeffrey Boyd who joined the court in 2012 and John Devine who was elected to the Supreme Court in 2012. There are justices like Jeff Brown who was appointed in 2013 and finally Jimmy Blacklock, a judge who was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2018 (Jones, 2017). Therefore, as it is evident from this discussion, some Justices like John Hill among others contributed a lot to the shaping and reshaping of the court system in Texas. Most of their ideologies like an appointment in judicial seats are still are still implemented up to now, and it is good to say that these ideologies led to the decline in the court’s disputes in Texas especially in the Supreme Court.

References

Baum, L. (2018). The supreme court. Cq Press.

Epstein, L., Segal, J. A., Spaeth, H. J., & Walker, T. G. (2015). The Supreme Court compendium: Data, decisions, and developments. Cq Press.

Hoffman, N. A. (2015). New Spoliation: How the Texas Supreme Court Clarified and Redefined the Law, The. Tex. BJ, 78, 270.

Jones, M. P. (2017). The Selection of Judges in Texas: Analysis of the Current System and of the Principal Reform Options.

Liberato, L., & Fohn, P. G. (2015). Texas Supreme Court Update. Advocate, 74.

McCloskey, R. G., & Levinson, S. (2016). The American supreme court. University of Chicago Press.

Monroe, B., & Mitchell, N. K. (2015). The History of Judicial Selection Reform in Texas. Brit. J. Am. Legal Stud., 4, 425.

Pacelle, R. (2018). The role of the Supreme Court in American politics: The least dangerous branch. Routledge.