Former state judge enters DA's race
EDINBURG – Cronyism and selective prosecution have turned the Hidalgo County District Attorney’s Office into a bastion for the rich and powerful, said the latest candidate to enter the race to lead the office.
Fidencio Guerra Jr. said top prosecutor Rene Guerra has used his position to protect friends and political allies during his nearly three decades in office and said he would continue to do so if elected to a seventh term.
“Prosecution is spelled with ‘P’ for professionalism – not politics or power,” said the former state district judge during an interview with The Monitor to announce his candidacy. “When you put yourself above the law, that makes you an outlaw.”
Fidencio Guerra, who is not related to the current district attorney, helmed the county’s 370th state District Court between 1991 and 1994 and has served as one of several rotating, non-elected judges who preside over the county’s auxiliary criminal courts.
During his time on the bench, he raised eyebrows on more than a few occasions with his unorthodox style, including once addressing people in his courtroom with a sock puppet.
When asked Friday about the judge’s entrance into the race, Rene Guerra bluntly dismissed the new challenger.
“Is he running,” he quipped. “Or is it the sock puppet?”
With this latest entrant, the March 2010 district attorney’s race is shaping up to become a referendum on Rene Guerra’s 27 years as Hidalgo County’s lead prosecutor. Although he said after his election victory in 2006 that he had no intention to run for a seventh term, he now faces primary challenges from two candidates – both of whom previously worked in his office.
Edinburg defense attorney Alma Garza, who kicked off her campaign in September, worked under Rene Guerra between 1989 and 1997 and gave him one of the closest election challenges of his career three years ago.
She said Friday that Fidencio Guerra’s candidacy would give voters yet another choice for a shift in leadership at the courthouse.
“Basically, the idea is we need a change,” she said. “The office is run the way it was run years ago, and things in the Valley have changed.”
Fidencio Guerra, in turn, made clear his intentions in running.
“I’m not running against Alma Garza,” said the judge, who worked in the district attorney’s office for six years in the 1980s. “I’m running against Rene.”
The Guerras have long shared an icy relationship with frequent public battles, including one last year when the district attorney threatened to pull all criminal cases from the judge’s court.
Rene Guerra has frequently accused Fidencio Guerra of acting inappropriately from the bench, pointing to a 2006 Texas Observer article that named the judge one of the worst in Texas.
The judge maintains that the incidents referenced in that article – including the infamous sock puppet incident -- are all taken out of context and each has a reasonable explanation.
For instance, he said, he used the sock puppet to put a small child that had come before his court at ease. He never used it as part of formal court proceedings.
“The DA can say anything he wants about me,” he said. “But when I’m on the bench, judicial ethics prohibit me from defending myself publicly.”
In addition to prosecuting all cases equally, Fidencio Guerra pledged to bring defendants to trial more quickly, establish better working relationships with municipal police departments, and restrict sentence-limiting plea deals if elected.
As of Sunday, only Fidencio Guerra and Garza had officially filed to run. Rene Guerra said he planned to file sometime this week.
The filing deadline for the March 2010 Democratic primary is Jan. 4.
