Telework Scaled Back for Poor Performance of Texas Prosecutors

Complaints from a federal judge in Texas about the work of prosecutors in El Paso prompted their boss to call for more in-office work, according to an internal email obtained by Bloomberg Law.

Judge Kathleen Cardone, of the US District Court for the Western District of Texas, said she and other judges in the division “are very concerned about the quality of work” from the office, according to a Sept. 3 email sent from the district’s US attorney, Jaime Esparza, to his staff.

The work, Esparza reported Cardone saying, “has been marked by lack of preparedness and ineffective advocacy in court because stand-in lawyers are unfamiliar with the file; inadequate responses to court staff trying to locate someone to cover hearings for the government; and shortcomings in the quality and timeliness of court filings.”

The judges expressed similar concerns 18 months ago, Esparza said in the email, adding that Cardone believes that telework is at the heart of the problem.

“If we fail to correct and improve our performance, the judges have tools to address defective pleadings, failures to appear, and being unresponsive,” he wrote. “Such actions by the courts will have a much more painful sting than any sanctions I might impose.”

Esparza said he met with Cardone to assuage her worries, but “the judges are skeptical; their patience may be at an end.”

Telework isn’t an option in several other divisions within the Western District. Esparza, who didn’t respond to a request for comment, said in the email that El Paso’s current telework policy isn’t being followed, with employees “failing to be in the office or court when required and being unresponsive or unreachable during working hours.”

He cut the number of days in a week an employee doesn’t have to work in-office to one and implored the employees to follow the policy to the letter. A source familiar with the policies says the prior telework arrangement allowed for two days per week.

Telework ‘Hangs by a Thread’

Cardone, a George W. Bush appointee, has been on the El Paso bench since 2003. Lawyers who practice in her court say she’s fair and calm, and that they weren’t aware of her frustrations with the prosecutor’s office.

“There must have been some repeat incidents that got under her skin for her to do something like that,” said Mary Stillinger, of Stillinger & Godinez.

“She’s a great judge. I don’t know what happened that caused her to issue that memo,” lawyer Ruben Hernandez of El Paso said.

Cardone didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The judge’s concerns come amid a broader conversation about telework policies in federal prosecutors’ offices.

Seventy percent of US Attorney’s offices offer at least two days of telework per week, according to a survey released in April from the National Association of Assistant US Attorneys. Around half of the nearly 500 prosecutors queried reported they would consider leaving their position if their boss adopted a more restrictive telework policy.

The survey found a significant difference in worker satisfaction in offices in California that offered two days of telework per week, compared to one. The Eastern District of California, which offers two days of telework per week, showed a 100% satisfaction level with the policy. Only 11% of employees in the Central District of California, which offers one day per week, said they were somewhat satisfied with the policy.

Cardone’s concerns also cast doubt on the quality of prosecutions in immigration cases, which occupy much of her docket in El Paso, a city of more than 600,000 people located along the US-Mexico border. This week, Cardone is scheduled to sentence defendants in more than 30 cases involving illegal re-entry or harboring undocumented immigrants.

Esparza’s email didn’t cite specific cases bungled by prosecutors.

“Independent of the court’s criticisms, it is clear that telework has interfered with collaboration, collegiality, training, morale, teamwork, an understanding of our shared mission, and a respect for the importance of the work we do,” Esparza wrote.

Esparza also gave a warning: “The continued availability of regularly scheduled telework in El Paso hangs by a thread.”