Race, Justice, and Texas

There have long been complaints that the Harris County DA's office discriminates. Former prosecutors have said that other lawyers in the office referred to Hurricane Katrina evacuees as "NFLs," or "N------ From Louisiana." In 2003 prosecutor Mike Trent sent an officewide message congratulating his colleagues on winning a case despite the presence of several "Canadians" on the jury. (He later said he was unaware that "Canadian" is sometimes used as a racial slur for a black person.) Jolanda Jones, a defense attorney and Houston city council member, has complained for years that minorities are unfairly stricken from juries and that punishment is administered more harshly for blacks. "There is absolutely an undercurrent of racism," she says. "The story is bigger than the district attorney's office. It's systemic. They're racist and classist. If you're poor or a minority, there is no justice."

But Joe Owmby, chief of the DA's integrity division and the highest-ranking black prosecutor in Harris County, says he's never felt as if he works in a racist atmosphere-and he defends Rosenthal for encouraging minority hiring. Other black former prosecutors say they never heard racist comments either.

The jury of public opinion is divided on whether Rosenthal's e-mails amount to a handful of embarrassing private messages or evidence of racism and sexism tainting the justice system in the nation's fourth-largest city. Hundreds rallied before Rosenthal's contempt of court hearing earlier this month to call for his resignation. Deric Muhammad of the Millions More Movement told the crowd on the courthouse steps, "We have a systemic problem. It is not just Rosenthal that has to go-the whole toilet must be flushed."

Will the next Harris County DA bring about wholesale change? Rosenthal's doctor, Sam Siegler, sent Rosenthal racy messages, including a video clip of women having their clothes ripped off in public. Siegler's wife Kelly was one of Rosenthal's star prosecutors. Despite her husband's role in the controversy, Kelly Siegler wasted no time distancing herself from her boss's activities, and now she's campaigning like a "bulldog in a Chihuahua's body" for Rosenthal's job. But Siegler herself is hardly immune to controversy. She made an anti-Semitic comment to a jury 20 years ago (she later apologized) and, in court a few years ago, she straddled a fellow prosecutor strapped to a bed with neckties. She was trying to show that a wife couldn't have acted in self defense when she stabbed her husband, played by the prosecutor, to death.

© 2008