Second-Year Texas Judge Takes on Long-Awaited Ken Paxton Trial

In the Houston courtroom of Judge Andrea Beall, who was recently elected on a promise to fight a backlog of cases, nine-year-old allegations of felony securities fraud against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) will be brought to trial in April.

It will be one of the most watched cases in Texas state court this year, where a Harris County jury will decide whether to send the state’s attorney general to prison.

Beall, 36, won election as a long shot in 2022 after unseating an incumbent judge in the Democratic primary. She inherited the Paxton case last summer, six months after taking the bench.

“One of the reasons I ran for this position is to make sure cases weren’t getting so old,” she said, “and that everyone was getting their day in court as efficiently as possible.”

The former felony prosecutor—little known in legal circles, especially compared to Paxton and the attorneys on the case—will have to be more than efficient. To ensure that Paxton and the state both get fair trials she’ll be faced with managing a “courtroom full of aggressive lawyers,” said Amanda Peters, a law professor who taught Beall at South Texas College of Law.

The special prosecutors assigned to the case are prominent Houston defense lawyers Kent Schaffer, who last year secured a grand jury no-bill for rapper Travis Scott in connection to the deadly Astroworld Festival, and Brian Wice, a loquacious appellate specialist who appears regularly on Houston and national TV programs as a legal analyst.

Countering them is the formidable defense table that Paxton put together. Bill Mateja is a former top-level prosecutor at the Justice Department. Philip Hilder represented a former Enron vice president. Dan Cogdell defended the leader of the Waco Branch Davidians in a criminal case and played a key role in securing an acquittal for Paxton in an impeachment trial in the Texas Senate last year.

“Most judges are not up for that task,” Peters said. “I think it’s going to be a test.”

‘Not Playing Games’

Beall’s decisions in the case so far have already changed the minds of some that were skeptical about whether she was up for the job.

Last fall, she ruled the prosecutors are entitled to greater pay than Paxton’s lawyers said they should get.

Schaffer and Wice agreed early to prosecute the case for $300 an hour. But after they received an initial payment in 2016, county commissioners in Paxton’s home of Collin County—where the case was held before being transferred to Harris County—moved to reduce their remaining pay to a flat fee of $2,000 each.

The dispute froze the case for years until Beall, three months after taking it over, concluded the flat fee was unreasonable and ordered the county to pay the larger hourly rate; the county is appealing her decision. The state’s highest criminal court says it won’t get involved, leaving it to be decided by an intermediary appeals court.

“That was a big step that she’s not playing any games,” said Houston defense lawyer Murray Newman, who isn’t involved in the case. “She’s not going to let politics basically defund the prosecution.”

Newman publicly criticized Beall when she ran for the bench, believing her track record as a tough-on-crime prosecutor made her too conservative for a Democratic primary. But as a judge, she’s been “fair minded” and “thoughtful,” he said.

Lawyers appear to agree. More than half of the 73 respondents in an evaluation of Harris County judges gave Beall a score of “excellent” or “very good” in demonstrating impartiality. One-fourth of respondents had no opinion.

“I think she’s the right person to have that case in front of,” Newman said.

The trial, set to begin April 15, will be Paxton’s second in seven months. The first was last September, in which he faced removal from office in an impeachment proceeding in the Texas Senate. He was acquitted by the Republican-controlled chamber on allegations of bribery and abuse of office.

Unlike that pseudo-criminal trial, in Beall’s court he faces real criminal charges and will be tried by a true jury of citizens.

He’s charged with two first-degree felonies for trying to solicit investors in the technology company Servergy without disclosing that it was paying him and a third-degree felony for failing to register with state securities regulators. Paxton, who has twice won re-election since the case began, has denied wrongdoing.

If convicted, he faces potential prison time and the termination of his law license. However, because the Texas attorney general isn’t required to be licensed by the state bar, he wouldn’t automatically lose his job.

photo courtesy of Andrea Beall

New Judge, Old Cases

Beall, the fifth judge since the case began, quickly set the April trial date after inheriting the case.

Her moves to finally resolve the matter aren’t a coincidence. Her decision to run to be a judge in her mid 30s—rather than waiting until later in her career—was motivated by cases she saw lingering in the court she now oversees. She campaigned against incumbent Judge Jason Luong (D) for failing to manage the court’s caseload, vowing to reduce the backlog if elected.

Despite getting outspent 4-to-1, Beall finished ahead of Luong in the March 2022 primary and then beat him in a runoff. She defeated a Republican that November, becoming one of the youngest judges in Harris County’s criminal and civil district courts.

Beall presided over 18 trials last year helping cut the court’s backlog by 40%.

“I’m super proud of her for that,” said Susan Brown, the presiding judge over the state’s judicial region that covers Harris County.

Brown acknowledged Beall is “uncommonly young” for a felony court judge, but said “she’s done exactly what I expected of her.”

Years before she climbed to the bench and onto the Paxton case, Beall lived a more humble life.

In her early 20s, she took a vow of poverty through Mission Year, a year-long Christian program where she lived in Houston’s Second Ward and worked at a nonprofit helping at-risk youth. She earned $75 a month plus $10 a week for food.

“I wanted to work for people being targeted by violent crime,” she said.

After attending graduate school at Eastern University in Pennsylvania, Beall returned to Houston to attend South Texas College of Law.

That led her to the Harris County District Attorney’s office in 2014, where she began prosecuting child sex crimes. She lasted for a year and a half before asking for a new assignment.

“You have to protect your soul,” she said, “and unfortunately your soul is exposed to the darkest parts of society.”

Beall—pronounced “bell"—mostly declined to comment on Paxton’s case. During Paxton’s impeachment trial, Beall said she intentionally shielded herself from coverage she feared could affect her commitment to staying neutral.

“I want to be fair and impartial in every way that I can,” she said.

But she did say that after nine years on the court’s log, it’s past time to bring the case to trial.