Harris County Judge Wood's Response to Plaintiffs' Motion to Reconsider Intervention by District Judges in Their Individual Capacities

    PorTER & CLEMENTS 
FIRST REPUBLICBANK CENTER 

700 LOUISIANA, SUITE 3500 

HOUSTON, TEXAS 77002-2730 

ATTORNEYS 
  

A PARTNERSHIP INCLUDING 

PROFESSIONAL CORPORATIONS 
TELEPHONE (713) 226-0600 

TELECOPIER (713) 228-1331 

TELECOPIER (713) 224-4835 

EVELYN V. KEYES TELEX 775-348 

(713) 226-0611 

September 5, 1989 

Clerk, U.S. District Court FEDERAL EXPRESS 
200 FE. Wall '8t., Suite 316 

Midland, Texas 79702 

  

Re: No. MO088-CA-154; League of United Latin American 
Citizens (LUILAC), et al. v. James Mattox, Attorney 

General of Texas, et al.; In the United States District 
Court for the Western District of Texas, Midland-Odessa 

Division 

Dear Sir: 

Enclosed for filing in the above-referenced case is Harris 
County District Judge Sharolyn Wood's Response to Plaintiffs’ 
Motion to Reconsider Intervention by District Judges in Their 
Individual Capacities. 

Please return a file stamped copy of these documents in the 
enveloped provided. 

A copy of this filing is being mailed by first class United 
States mail, postage prepaid, to all counsel of record. 

Sincerely yours, 

y Gon l/ 2 
Ye [Sey 

in V. Keyes i 

EVK/cdf 
enclosures 

cc: Mr, William 1. Garrett 
Ms. Brenda Hall Thompson 
Garrett, Thompson & Chang 
Attorneys at Law 

8300 Douglas, Suite 800 
Dallas, Texas 75225 

 



  

“ 
   

PorRTER & CLEMENTS 

Clerk, U.S, District Court 
September 5, 1989 
Page -2- 

CC: Mr. Rolando L. Rios 
Southwest Voter Registration & 

Education Project 
201 N.,. St. Mary's, Suite 521 
San Antonio, Texas 78205 

Ms. Susan Finkelstein 
Texas Rural Legal Aid, Inc. 
201 MN. St. Mary's, Suite 600 
San Antonio, Texas 78205 

Mr. Julius Levonne Chambers 7 
Ms. Sherrilyn A. Ifill 
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. 
99 Hudson Street, 16th Floor 

New York, New York 10013 

Ms. Gabrielle K. McDonald 

Matthews & Branscomb 

301 Congress Ave., Suite 2050 
Austin, Texas 78701 

Mr. Jim Mattox, Attorney General of Texas 

Ms. Mary F. Keller, First Assistant Attorney General 
Ms. Renea Hicks, Spec. Assistant Attorney General 
Mr. Javier Guajardo, Spec. Assistant Attorney General 
P. OO. Box 12548 
Capitol Station 
Austin, Texas 78701 

Mr. Edward B. Cloutman, III 

Mullinax, Wells, Baab & Cloutman, P.C. 

3301 Elm Street 

Dallas, Texas 75226-1637 

Mr. E. Brice Cunningham 
777 So. R.L. Thornton Freeway, Suite 121 
Dallas, Texas 75203 

Mr. Robert H. Mow, Jr. 

Hughes & Luce 
2800 Momentum Place 

1717 Main Street 

Dallas, Texas 75201 

 



  

THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 
THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS 

MIDLAND-ODESSA DIVISION 

LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN AMERICAN 
CITIZENS (LULAC), et al. 

Vv. NO. MO-88-CA-154 

JIM MATTOX, Attorney General 
of the State of Texas, et al. h

h
 

D
W
)
 

HARRIS COUNTY DISTRICT JUDGE SHAROLYN WOOD'S RESPONSE 

TO PLAINTIFFS' MOTION TO RECONSIDER INTERVENTION BY 

DISTRICT JUDGES IN THEIR INDIVIDUAL CAPACITIES 

  

  

  

TO THE HONORABLE UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE: 

Defendant/Intervenor Harris County District Judge Sharolyn 

Wood ("Judge Wood") files this Response to Plaintiffs' Motion to 

Reconsider Intervention by District Judges in Their Individual 

Capacities and in support thereof would respectfully show the 

Court the following: 

1. Plaintiffs' Motion is not timely. Judge Wood filed her 

Motion to Intervene on February 21, 1989. At that time the 

Plaintiffs did not oppose her intervention. Judge Wood was 

granted permission to intervene on February 28, 1989 at a hearing 

in open court in which the Plaintiffs had the opportunity to 

voice any opposition to her intervention which they might have. 

Since her intervention, Judge Wood has served discovery requests, 

filed motions to dismiss and to compel production, conducted 

numerous depositions, produced documents for inspection and 

copying by the Plaintiffs and Harris County Plaintiff/Intervenor 

 



  

the Houston Lawyers' Association, and in general conducted a 

vigorous defense of this suit in Harris County, a principal 

target of the Plaintiffs, all without any hint of opposition to 

her intervention by the Plaintiffs or by anyone else until 

August 16, 1989, more -than a month ‘after trial ‘had been 

previously scheduled and only a month before the final court- 

ordered trial date. 

2. ‘The Plaintiffs state in their Brief in Support of their 

Motion to Reconsider that the Court relied upon Williams v. State 
  

board of Llections, #696 F.Supp. 1563 (N.D. Ill. 1988). (a case 
  

brought to the court's attention by Judge Wood) in allowing Judge 

Wood to intervene as a Defendant. Having previously foregone the 

opportunity to object to Judge Wood's invocation of Williams as 
  

authority for her intervention -- authority which the Court 

apparently accepted in granting that intervention -- the Plain- 

tiffs now attempt to distinguish Williams, even though as 
  

Defendant Wood pointed out in her Memorandum in Support of her 

Motion to Intervene, Williams was a vote dilution case brought by 

black and Hispanic residents of Cook County, Illinois under the 

Voting Rights Act seeking to abolish an at large judicial 

election system and replace it with a single member district 

scheme -- exactly as in the present case. See Judge Wood's 

Memorandum at 6-7. 

3. Not only was Williams on all fours with the present 
  

case factually, but also, as the Plaintiffs themselves 

 



  

acknowledge, Williams held that state district judges have a 
  

property interest in their continued tenure in office cognizable 

under a due process analysis. In her Brief in Support of her 

Intervention, Judge Wood argued, without any opposition from the 

Plaintiffs, that like the Illinois judges she too has a property 

interest in the retention of her office as a state district judge 

and that her property interest 1s protected by the Fourteenth 

Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Plaintiffs’ 

belated response to that argument is to claim conclusorily that 

unlike Illinois judges, Texas district judges do not require 

constitutional protection for their interests in finishing out 

the terms of office to which they have been duly elected. The 

Plaintiffs reach this curious conclusion even though the 

proposition seems on its face incomprehensible and appears to 

conflict with the one authority they cite with approval, Tarrant 

County v, Ashmore, 5635 S.W.24 417 (Tex. 1982). 1/   

  

i
.
 Defendant Wood finds it strange that the Ashmore case was 

cited since, on her reading, the case supports her right to 
intervene. In Ashmore, the Texas Supreme Court held that a 
public officer's interest in his elected position is 
recognizable for purposes of procedural due process 
analysis. 635. S.W.24 at 422. However, the Court held on 
the facts of the case that three justices of the peace and 
one constable who had passed up the opportunity to comment 
on a redistricting plan at five public hearings had no right 
to complain after their districts were abolished and to seek 
damages for lost wages on the grounds that they were 
unconstitutionally deprived of their property without just 
compensation. See Ashmore, a copy of which is attached 

| 

  

(Footnote Cont'd) 

 



  

3. Since, as even the Plaintiffs concede, Texas authority 

as well as federal authority holds that elected officials have 

cognizable interests in their positions for the purposes of 

procedural due process analysis; since Judge Wood argued that 

interest in her Motion to Intervene without any opposition from 

the Plaintiffs; since the Court apparently accepted that argument 

and the federal precedent supporting it; and since the Plaintiffs 

fail to come up with any reason whatsoever for abandoning that 

analysis at this late stage except to claim conclusorily that 

somehow Texas judges' interest in their office does not require 

due process protection, the Court has been given no reason to 

reverse itself and withdraw Judge Wood's permission to intervene. 

WHEREFORE Harris County District Judge Sharolyn Wood 

respectfully requests that the Court deny Plaintiffs' Motion to 

Reconsider Intervention by District Judges in Their Individual 

  

(Footnote Cont'd) 

hereto. In Ashmore, the plaintiffs had been afforded an 
opportunity to be heard before the redistricting plan was 
adopted - an opportunity which they ignored. In the instant 
case, by contrast, the Plaintiffs would belatedly deny Judge 
Wood the opportunity to be heard in litigation directly 
affecting her interest in continuing in office, an interest 
which both the Texas Supreme Court in Ashmore and the 
federal courts in Williams have held 1s an interest 

  

recognizable for purposes of procedural due process. 

 



Capacities; and she requests such further relief in law and in 

equity to which she may show herself justly entitled. 

Respectfully submitted, 

PORTER & CLEMENTS 

L100 inl Lhranls 
J. "Eugene Clements Zuckan 
700 Louisiana, Suite 3500 

Houston, Texas 77002-2730 

(713) 226-0600 

  

  

NW Ta hy Cred, 
Sa Smith VI 
Attorney at Law 
10999 Interstate Hwy. 10, #905 ~< 
San Antonio, Texas 78230 

(512) 641-9944 

ATTORNEYS FOR HARRIS COUNTY 
DISTRICT JUDGE SHAROLYN WOOD 

OF COUNSEL: 

PORTER & CLEMENTS 

John E. O'Neill 
Evelyn V. Keyes 
700 Louisiana, Suite 3500 
Houston, Texas 77002-2739 

(713) 226-0600 

Michael J. Wood 
Attorney at Law 

440 Louisiana, Suite 200 

Houston, Texas 77002 
{713) 228~5105  



  

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE 
  

SH 
I hereby certify that on the S day of September, 1989, 

a true and correct copy of the above and foregoing Harris County 
District Judge Sharolyn Wood's Response to Plaintiffs' Motion to 
Reconsider Intervention by District Judges in their Individual 
Capacities was served upon counsel of record in this case by 
first class United States mail, postage prepaid, addressed as 
follows: 

Mr. William L. Garrett 
Ms. Brenda Hall Thompson 
Garrett, Thompson & Chang 
Attorneys at Law 

8300 Douglas, Suite 800 
Dallas, Texas 75225 

Mr. Rolando L. Rios 
Southwest Voter Registration & 

Education Project 
201 N, St, Mary's, Suite 521 
San Antonio, Texas 78205 

Ms. Susan Finkelstein 
Texas Rural Legal Aid, Inc. 
201 N, St. Mary's, Suite 600 
San Antonio, Texas 78205 

Mr. Julius Levonne Chambers 
Ms. Sherrilyn A. Ifill 
NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. 
99 Hudson Street 

l6th Floor 

New York, New York 10013 

Ms. Gabrielle K. McDonald 

Matthews & Branscomb 

301 Congress Ave., Suite 2050 
Austin, Texas 78701 

Mr. Jim Mattox, Attorney General of Texas 

Ms. Mary F. Keller, First Assistant Attorney General 
Ms. Renea Hicks, Spec. Assistant Attorney General 

Mr. Javier Guajardo, Spec. Assistant Attorney General 
P, OO. Box 12548 
Capitol Station 
Austin, Texas 78701 

 



  

Mr. Edward B. Cloutman, III 
Mullinax, Wells, Baab & Cloutman, P.C. 
3301 Elm Street 

Dallas, Texas 75226-1637 

Mr. E. Brice Cunningham 
777 So. R.L. Thornton Freeway 
Suite 121 
Dallas, Texas 75203 

Mr. Robert H. Mow, Jr. 

Hughes & Luce 
2800 Momentum Place 

1717 Main Street 
Dallas, Texas 75201 

Zoste Vieo 
Evelyn V. Keyed 
  

WO003/24/cdf