Texas Judge Hopefuls Overcome Thin Resumes With Paxton Support

Texas Republican voters took their cue from Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) and at his urging ousted three sitting judges on the state’s highest criminal court, picking instead low-profile challengers with modest credentials.

Paxton’s choices easily won primary elections last week for the Court of Criminal Appeals, latching onto his revenge tour for a ruling the court made in 2021 that blocked his office from prosecuting voter fraud without approval from local prosecutors. Paxton took the unusual step of endorsing opponents against all three judges, raising awareness to down-ballot races that typically favor incumbents.

The wins make Paxton’s candidates the presumptive winners of the job in Texas’ Republican-dominated general elections, a reality sparking concerns in the state’s legal circles. Two of the three Paxton-backed candidates—Gina Parker and Lee Finley—have never been a judge and have little criminal appellate experience as lawyers, court records show. In recent elections, voters rejected them in favor of incumbent judges.

“Objectively speaking, looking at the credentials of Parker and Finley, they don’t appear to have what you would ideally want a high court judge to have,” said Elsa Alcala, who served as a judge on the Court of Criminal Appeals from 2011 to 2018.

The court they’re seeking to join typically attracts esteemed candidates, ones that if successful will review cases up to and including death penalty convictions. Four of the nine current judges served previously as a judge in a state district court, including Michelle Slaughter, who fell to Finley. The five others boasted extensive appellate experience. They include fellow election losers Sharon Keller and Barbara Hervey, the two longest tenured members of the court who have collectively served 54 years.

During the campaign, Paxton branded the judges as out-of-touch activists who bungled the voter fraud ruling and made dubious claims that they were backed by billionaire progressive George Soros. He spent significantly less time highlighting the credentials of their opponents.

Three New Judges

As a criminal lawyer, Parker has worked on five appeals cases, but none since 2000, court records show. The following year she shifted her focus away from her private practice to launch a company that sells dental products in Waco.

In 2020, Parker turned to elected politics, running for the criminal high court and falling in the Republican primary. Then she made another career pivot as an author, publishing Christian titles in October 2022 and October 2023.

Finley, licensed to practice law since 2002, has been the lawyer of record on one criminal appeals case, which barely got off the ground before he filed a petition to withdraw the appeal, court records show. He’s mainly handled misdemeanor matters in Collin County, Paxton’s Dallas-area home, where the two are linked by mutual conservative friends. He waded into elected politics in 2022, falling by 40 points in a primary challenge to the county’s judge, an administrative position overseeing the county government.

Parker and Finley didn’t respond to messages about their legal credentials. Paxton didn’t respond to a message about his endorsements.

The thin experience of Parker and Finley is “concerning,” said Robert Burns, Chief Justice of the Dallas intermediary appeals court. But it’s not unprecedented, he said.

In 1994, when Republicans began a thirty-year statewide winning streak over Democrats, Texas voters elected to the criminal high court Steve Mansfield, a lawyer who until then had mostly practiced tax law. During the campaign, Mansfield was caught in several lies. He falsely said his background was primarily criminal defense. Born in Massachusetts, he claimed to be a Texas native. He said he had never run for public office, but that too was untrue: Mansfield twice ran for Congress in New England.

Once elected, Mansfield joined other conservative judges in moving the court further to the right and raising the bar for overturning a conviction. The court adopted a rule in 1997 saying it must disregard an error unless the defendant can prove it affected their rights. Before then, the burden was on the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the error didn’t contribute to a conviction or punishment.

Mansfield didn’t seek re-election after his term expired, then, two years later, voters rejected him in his bid to regain his seat.

“Unfortunately, it’s going to happen in Texas because the way our system is,” said Burns, a Democrat who isn’t seeking re-election.

Texas is one of seven states that picks justices through partisan elections. It is one of two states with two high courts—the Supreme Court for civil matters, and the Court of Criminal Appeals.

‘Mixed Feelings’

The Republican primary races weren’t close. Backed by nearly $250,000 from Paxton’s wealthy donors, Parker beat Hervey by 32 points and Finley beat Slaughter by eight points.

The third winning candidate, David Schenck, beat Keller by 26 percentage points.

Schenck has the strongest resume of Paxton’s candidates, but he likewise is drawing criticism. After the election, he went on Facebook to thank his supporters for nominating him as presiding justice of the court. Trouble was, the primary election he won was for the position of presiding judge. The mistake is captured in a graphic that Schenck said someone prepared for him and which he posted without proofreading.

Schenck previously served as a judge on an intermediary state appeals court, which is experience that no other judge on the court currently has. He ran for the Supreme Court in 2022, losing in a primary.

In November, Paxton’s candidates will be heavy favorites in reliably red Texas, even though their opponents arguably have superior or comparable credentials. The Democrats facing Parker and Finley are district court judges in Dallas, and Schenck’s opponent is a longtime appellate prosecutor in Austin.

Having institutional knowledge, said Judge Nancy Mulder, Parker’s opponent, is “extremely important” in deciding whether the court should review convictions in non-DNA cases.

“This is the court that hears all of the death penalty appeals,” she said.

Alcala, the former judge on the court, said the court was due for a shakeup. She said it’s time for Keller to go, believing the court’s decisions under her leadership disproportionately favor the prosecution. She said it’s also time for Hervey to retire. But she’s concerned about the new judges likely coming in.

“I have mixed feelings about that,” Alcala said. “On one hand their resumes to me don’t look necessarily in line with what I would hope to see on that court. On the other hand, I am feeling like it’s not doomsday about any of them potentially getting on the court.”