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James Montoya elected El Paso’s next district attorney [1]

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Date: 2024-11-05

James Montoya will be El Paso’s next district attorney, defeating incumbent Bill Hicks in Tuesday’s general election, early voting results show.

Montoya, a Democrat, won 58% of the early votes, with Hicks, a Republican, trailing behind with 42% of the early votes. Election Day votes are vastly unlikely to change that trajectory.

Montoya, 34, will become the fourth district attorney to represent El Paso and far West Texas in just over four years, which has been an especially tumultuous period for the office. Over five decades from 1971 until 2021, El Paso saw only two district attorneys – Steve Simmons and Jaime Esparza – hold office.

“I want to be your DA for a very long time. I’m not planning to run for anything else,” Montoya told El Paso Matters at a Democratic watch party off of Zaragoza Road.

“It’s very clear that Republican criminal justice priorities do not align with this community,” he said. He cited Gov. Greg Abbott’s push to use state law enforcement resources to prevent migrants from entering the U.S., as well as comments from Abbott suggesting El Paso is an epicenter of illegal Venezuelan gang activity.

The district attorney prosecutes state cases in El Paso County as well as in Culberson and Hudspeth counties, which are within the 34th Judicial District. The office also administers the victim assistance program for victims of misdemeanor, felony and juvenile crimes. The DA’s office has a $23 million budget this year and 185 employees.

The DA serves a four-year term and is paid $198,000 a year.

Hicks won Culberson County by a margin of 54% to Montoya’s 46%. In Hudspeth County, Hicks garnered 81% of the vote.

Hicks on Tuesday evening declined to concede the race before El Paso election officials released final vote tallies.

“Any Republican running in El Paso has an uphill battle. It’s just a very natural thing,” Hicks said in an interview. “We knew that going into this race, and knew that we’re spotting our opponent a sizable number of votes going in.”

Montoya lost the Democratic primary runoff for district attorney in 2020 to Yvonne Rosales, who didn’t face a Republican opponent that year. Hicks, 54, was appointed to the position by Gov. Greg Abbott after Yvonne Rosales resigned as she faced efforts to remove her from office in late 2022.

Rosales was criticized for getting thousands of criminal cases dismissed without a trial or hearing, for dismantling the domestic violence unit and mishandling various criminal cases, including the Walmart mass shooting case.

James Montoya, who will be El Paso’s next district attorney, speaks during a Democratic Party election watch party at Cerveceria 19 on the Eastside, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (Armando Vela / El Paso Matters)

Montoya, a former homicide prosecutor with experience in El Paso and on a Native American reservation in Oklahoma, ran again this election cycle with the goal of rebuilding staffing in the office and moving forward the state’s trial against the Walmart mass shooting suspect.

On the campaign trail over much of the last year, Montoya consistently argued that the DA’s office under Hicks has remained understaffed and morale among lawyers is low.

Hicks largely blamed a shortage of staffers during his tenure on Rosales, who fired dozens of lawyers and other employees when she took office in January 2021. Chronic staffing shortages after the mass terminations – and disruptions caused by the pandemic – plagued the office throughout Rosales’ tenure, leading several judges to criticize the office for being unprepared to try cases.

Still, the problem of not enough lawyers working in the DA’s office persisted for nearly two years after Hicks was appointed, Montoya said throughout the campaign.

Montoya said he’ll be able to increase staffing because he’s gotten commitments from around a dozen lawyers who said they would come work in the DA’s office under him.

In early October, Hicks said that there were 74 or 75 lawyers working in the DA’s office. A fully-staffed DA’s office would have 93 attorneys, but the office historically has rarely been fully staffed, Hicks said.

Incumbent District Attorney Bill Hicks, a Republican, loses to Democratic challenger James Montoya, Nov. 5, 2024. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)

At the time, Hicks said the DA’s office was waiting for a handful of attorneys to get the results of their bar exams, although it’s not clear if those attorneys would still work for the office under Montoya.

Hicks said last month that the DA’s office was “woefully short” on attorney staffing in felony court. Hicks’ plan was to promote misdemeanor lawyers to felony court, and fill those misdemeanor prosecutor slots with the batch of young attorneys awaiting their bar results. Hicks has argued it’s hard to hire lawyers because they get far higher salary offers at private sector law firms.

In exit interviews conducted over the last year by county officials, some lawyers who have left the DA’s office – though not all – suggested the lack of staffing has led to overworked lawyers and low morale in the DA’s office.

Regardless of staffing, the next DA’s biggest task will be concluding the state’s case against Patrick Crusius, the gunman in the Aug. 3, 2019, El Paso Walmart mass shooting.

Crusius pleaded guilty last year to federal hate crimes and weapons charges after the U.S. Department of Justice decided not to seek the death penalty. He was sentenced to 90 consecutive life terms in federal prison.

In September, 409th District Judge Sam Medrano issued a scheduling order for the Walmart case that has arguments on pretrial motions beginning in January 2025 and jury selection possibly beginning in January 2026.

Montoya has said he will likely continue to pursue the state’s death penalty case against Crusius when he enters office, but has left the door open to a possible plea deal that could lead to a life sentence.

Crusius’ defense attorneys are seeking to have Medrano dismiss the state’s death penalty case because they allege the DA’s office engaged in prosecutorial misconduct against Crusius. The defense team has said prosecutors listened in on confidential calls between Crusius and his lawyers, and also kept records of medical experts who visited him in jail.

Hicks has denied that prosecutors violated Crusius’ right to a fair trial.

After a two-day hearing last week, Medrano scheduled another hearing Dec. 11 to continue examining the allegations and decide whether to throw the case out.

On Tuesday, Montoya declined to comment on the recent hearings in the Walmart case.

“I’m not the DA yet, but I’m going to adopt the policy of not commenting on pending cases,” he said.

Since entering the race in the summer of 2023, Montoya brought in more than $157,300 in donations as of Oct. 26. Montoya also took out $75,000 in loans and spent almost $309,000 on the race, including about $105,000 of his own money, either with credit cards or his personal funds.

By comparison, Hicks spent about $74,000 on the election, including $3,000 of his own funds.

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[1] Url: https://elpasomatters.org/2024/11/05/election-results-el-paso-da-district-attorney-james-montoya-bill-hicks/

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