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Opponents in family court contest talk fairness, abilities, technology [1]

['Daniel Perez', 'More Daniel Perez', 'El Paso Matters']

Date: 2024-02-13

After being out of office for four years, the former judge of the 383rd District Court wants his seat back as he is challenging the incumbent who replaced him in 2020.

Current 383rd District Court Judge Lyda Ness Garcia is being challenged by former judge Miguel “Mike” Herrera, who held that job from 2001 to 2020.

The winner of this Democratic primary will take office Jan. 1, 2025, because there are no Republican challengers for this office. The current annual salary for this position is $158,000.

Each candidate recently spoke to El Paso Matters about their campaign and the reasons that they want this job, which includes the hiring of an associate judge who will work at the discretion of the presiding judge.

Early voting runs Feb. 20 through March 1. Election day is March 5.

Herrera: ‘I’ll be fair’

Herrera, 74, is an El Paso native and 1968 graduate of Austin High School. The former Marine used the G.I. Bill to pay his way through the University of Texas at El Paso, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology in 1975.

While employed by the city of El Paso, he began to consider a career as a lawyer because he noticed situations where minorities and the underprivileged were treated unfairly. He graduated from the Texas Tech University School of Law in 1985.

He worked for the El Paso County District Attorney’s office for two years and then went into private practice where about 80% of his cases involved family law. Voters first elected him as judge of the 383rd in 2000. While in office, he ran for El Paso County Court at Law No. 5 in 2018 but lost in the primary. He did not seek reelection in 2020.

In 2016, the Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct issued Herrera a reprimand, the second-severest sanction possible, because he filed for divorce in 2012 and allowed the case to stay in his court for four months. Herrera said that he did this because he and his former wife were trying to work things out. Among the commission’s reported findings were Herrera’s admission that he should have handled a few things differently, but that he did not believe his actions were wrong.

When asked about this matter recently, he remained defiant, but said that he did what he did to try to clear his name and he can live with the outcome.

Since he left the bench, he has continued to work in his field to include some pro bono cases. From his perspective, he would like the court to be more impartial and less dependent on Zoom hearings, especially when they involve custody cases, protective orders and enforcement actions. He said those should be done in person. He decided to run because he thought he could do a better job.

“People should not complain unless they’re willing to do something about it,” Herrera said.

Later, when asked why he was the best person for the job, his answer was to the point.

“That’s easy,” he said. “I’ll be fair.”

In his campaign finance report, from July through December 2023, he received an in-kind contribution of $850 from attorney Theresa Caballero for “magazine publicity,” and spent $1,760 from personal funds, including the $1,500 filing fee. He also had an outstanding unitemized loan of $160. He received no contributions during the latest filing period that ended Jan. 25.

Ness Garcia: ‘There’s room for creativity’

Lyda Ness Garcia, 52, was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. After her parents separated, her mother moved the family to Greece where her maternal grandparents lived. Ness Garcia grew up in Athens, but moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, as a teenager with her mother.

She earned her bachelor’s degree in English literature from the University of Michigan in 1992. She moved to Austin, Texas, to work for an environmental organization and became interested in the legal system. She earned her law degree from the UT Austin School of Law in 1997. While a law student, she worked in the District Attorney’s office on child protective services cases.

“I found that children’s rights was (the kind of law) I wanted to do,” she said.

As a law student, she and her peers would travel to climb rocks at Hueco Tanks State Park about 40 miles northeast of El Paso. Her familiarity with the region was among the reasons she accepted a job offer from the El Paso County Attorney’s office. She stayed there three years before she opened her private practice around 2002 to follow her passion, which was to represent parents and children in high-conflict cases.

Outside the court, she has been a community advocate for such causes as women’s rights and immigration assistance.

Her previous runs for office were in 2011 for the El Paso City Council District 1 and in 2014 for District 77 in the Texas House of Representatives. She lost the city race to incumbent Ann Lilly, and the state contest to incumbent Marisa Marquez.

In 2020, Ness Garcia won the seat left vacant by Herrera. She said her goals have been to raise the efficiency and trustworthiness of the judicial system because she knows how stressful these situations can be for families, especially children.

“I think there’s a lot of room for creativity in family law to meet a child’s interests,” said Ness Garcia, a single mother of three.

Her campaign website is stocked with testimonials from attorneys, current and former elected officials as well as community members who praise Ness Garcia as a fair, patient, thoughtful and knowledgeable jurist.

“She rules in a manner which may not give everyone what they want, but ultimately gives families what they need,” said Ouisa D. Davis, attorney and counselor at law, in one of the posts.

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[1] Url: https://elpasomatters.org/2024/02/13/383rd-district-court-family-court-lyda-ness-garcia-miguel-mike-herrera/

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