Texas judge won't bend to DA's jeans-days policy
A Texas judge isn’t on board with the Bexar County district attorney’s policy to improve morale by allowing prosecutors to wear jeans to court during special events in San Antonio.
Judge Steven Hilbig, who is himself a former district attorney, refuses to relax the dress code requiring lawyers to wear business attire in court, report the San Antonio News Express and Fox San Antonio.
District Attorney Nico LaHood allows prosecutors who aren’t involved in trials to wear jeans during the Fiesta festival and the San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo. He also rewards prosecutors who raise money for charity by allowing them to wear jeans for one day.
“I get decorum. I’m a person that believes in absolute order,” LaHood told the San Antonio News Express. “But I’m also reasonable, and people need to be rewarded for hard work. He has cheated our prosecutors out of all those special events.”
LaHood decided he had had enough when Hilbig would not allow jeans last week during the Fiesta celebration. As a result, LaHood ordered prosecutors to wear jeans Wednesday through Friday of this week as well. Hilbig was hearing motions without prosecutors, and prosecutors were looking at files in a conference room down the hall.
The News Express points out that LaHood is a Democrat and Hilbig is a Republican. “Finally, both of these men have iron wills,” the story says, “and neither one has the word ‘capitulate’ in his vocabulary.”
