Judge Yahara Lisa Gutierrez, El Paso Times darling, was just elected to be the presiding judge of the 65th Judicial District Court. She unseated long time Judge Fred (Alfredo) Chavez. Judge Chavez was well known for not playing favorites. In fact, he was one of the few judges who was truly independent. He made his calls despite the clamoring in the press (which often gets the facts wrong) and without regard for who the lawyers were. He once basically told Texas state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh where to go. He would take his time on a case and consult the law. He was respectful to all litigants and people loved to go before him. His court, the 65th handled all juvenile cases, all CPS cases, 1/3 of the family law cases and, at one time, it also had a criminal docket. Judge Chavez gave up the criminal docket many years ago.
Judge Yahara Lisa Gutierrrez, who had been a long time employee of County Attorney Jose Rodriguez, friend of Eliot Shapleigh, ran against Judge Chavez last primary election and won. She ran while still in the employ of Jose Rodriguez as a prosecutor. She ran on the platform that Judge Chavez had been sanctioned for keeping alcohol in his chambers (which many of the judges do and so what?) and that he had not tended to his family law docket. Her contention was that the families of El Paso needed a judge who would not neglect their family law matters. It sounded so good to so many people.
What Judge Gutierrez and the El Paso Times failed to tell the voters while they were clobbering Judge Chavez for keeping a decanter of liquor in his chambers was that then candidate Gutierrez had actually been ARRESTED for DWI. According to police records, then assistant county attorney Ms. Gutierrez was traveling approximately 90 per hour, early in the morning on I-10 by the Sunland Park exit. The police pulled her over. She smelled like alcohol. She told the police she was unemployed. They asked why she had a bunch of cards in her purse that said she was an assistant county attorney if she was unemployed. The police say Gutierrez said that she had worked as a clerk (not as a lawyer) in that office but that she no longer had a job. Gutierrez was in fact employed as a lawyer by the County Attorney’s Office at the time of her arrest. Her mug shot from that arrest is so fantastic it should be held up as the classic DWI mugshot; she sported the tosseled hair, lazy eyes, smirk and all. The Diario of El Paso ran a front page article, with the mug shot, on Gutierrez’ arrest entitled, “Candidate for Judge may have lied to the Police.”
The El Diario should run a new article that reads, “Judge may have lied to Voters.”
One of Judge Guiterrez’ first acts in office (remember she was sworn in in early January 2009, just thirty or so days ago) was to transfer (unload, dump, abandon) her entire family law docket to the 171st District Court. “Taking care of your family matters” to Judge Guiterrez means dumping them on another judge. Did you as a voter think when she was giving her stump speeches and the El Paso Times was trumpeting her platform that when Gutierrez said she wanted your family matters to be taken care of that she was actually going to do it herself? Is that what you believed? What do you think now?
It takes a tremendous amount of gall and guile to tell the voters that your opponent is bad because he is “slow” with the family docket and that you should be elected, that you will speed things up, that you will roll up your sleeves and get cracking, only to take the bench and before two weeks have passed transfer that same family docket out to another court. But then it also takes a lot of gall and guile to cast stones at a judge for keeping alcohol in his chambers, which is not against the law, when you yourself have been arrested for Drunken Driving. –And yes, Judge Gutierrez’ DWI charges did go away, not enough evidence or something like that was the reason.
Who do you have to thank for this? Answer: The El Paso Times. They destroyed Judge Chavez day after day, article after article, all the while leaving out who and what Yahara Gutierrez is-including the fact that she just recently got around to becoming a US citizen. So the next time you write out your check for your subscription to the El Paso Times, keep in mind that keeping that newspaper afloat and reading its contents is the equivalent of bombing the court house and giving yourself a lobotomy before you go into the voting booth.