Some Texas County Judges Not Lawyers, Yet They Preside Over Pleas
Mark Henry is trained as a pilot, not a lawyer. Nevertheless the Galveston County, Texas, judge, who traditionally performs administrative duties, has been presiding over court matters, and that worries some folks.
The Texas Legislature created county courts-at-law many years ago, according to the Houston Chronicle, to take over the judicial duties of county judges.
Henry has completed 46 hours of judicial training and earns an extra $15,000 a year by presiding over court matters, as a supplement to his $133,600 annual salary.
Henry told the newspaper that he is actually saving his county money by not paying for a visiting judge.
Lawyers wish he would.
“No competent defense attorney would agree to have an inexperienced amateur on the bench,” Winston E. Cochran Jr., a Houston lawyer, told the newspaper.
Susan Criss, a state court judge, also had some concerns. She noted that Henry had presided over misdemeanor plea bargains.
“There are certain things in my job that I do that I have to have legal training to do,” she said. “I am not comfortable with someone who is not a lawyer taking pleas.”
Interestingly, Texas county judges have a lower rate of their cases being overturned than county court-at-law judges and district judges, says David Hodges. He serves as the judicial education director of the Texas Association of Counties. According to Hodges, about half of the counties in Texas lack county courts-at-law.
