Chuck Rosenthal

Harris County DA Chuck Rosenthal will be back in court today for a hearing to decide if he should be held in contempt of court for deleting more than 2,500 e-mails that he had been ordered to produce. Attorney Scott Durfee testified that as an attorney Rosenthal should have known the emails were evidence and shouldn't be deleted (DUH). The 1500 emails that were recovered contained pornographic and racist messages. Also included were love notes between Rosenthal who is married and his secretary. He also used Harris County computers for election campaigning, a big no-no.

Harris County sends more people to death row than any other prosecutor's office in the United States and it has been clear to the African American community in Harris County for a long time that they receive different treatment than white people. The racist emails along with the problems in the crime lab should convince the rest of this problem.

It was good to see all the protesters at the courthouse. There were more than 150 religious, community, and political leaders and I was happy to see that not all of the protesters were African American. This is an issue that we should all be concerned about, regardless of race. Everyone benefits if the right person is prosecuted and incarcerated for a crime. I was glad to see Councilman Peter Brown, a man for whom I have a lot of respect, outside the courthouse with the other protesters calling for the resignation of Rosenthal. Rosenthal refuses to step down but is not running for re-election. It's time for him to go. Several assistant DA's including Kelly Siegler should go as well.

More bad Republicans

More trouble for the District Attorney's office. I heard on the news this morning that Kelly Siegler refused to put a black man on the jury, not because he was black and a member of the NAACP but in her words: "He's a member of Lakewood Church. And we have had a running agreement — my partner Luci Davidson and I have, since we started — that people who go to Lakewood are screwballs and nuts," Siegler told the judge. "I'm very familiar with that church. We try our hardest not to put anybody who goes to Lakewood regularly on any jury, ... That's one reason that scared me about the man."
Siegler is one of the Republican candidates running for Harris County District Attorney. The current DA, Chuck Rosenthal is being investigated by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott after racist, off-color jokes, and pornographic videos were found on his work computer. The biggest issue being investigated however is his use of Harris County computers for campaign related activities.

This picture of Siegler was taken during the trial of Susan Wright. Siegler had the bed and bloody mattress brought into the courtroom and tied prosecutor Paul Doyle to the bed. She then straddled him to demonstrate how Wright could have bound and stabbed her husband 200 times. She won the case.