 Welcome, everyone, to tonight's district attorney candidate forum. My name is Reverend Dr. Bart Rausch. I'm from Madison Square Presbyterian Church, and I'll be your moderator for this evening. It's a pleasure to be here with you tonight. We're being hosted tonight at the Living Church at Woodlawn Point, a non-dominational progressive Christian church. Thank you to the Reverend Joseph Garrett and all the staff at Living Church for their kind assistance over the last few weeks. Thanks also to all of the community organizations who have come together to cultivate, elevate, and amplify tonight's important discussion on criminal justice in Bayer County. Throughout the program, you will hear from them as they ask questions of our Democratic candidates in the March 6th primary election. There will be representatives from Big Homie Street Mentoring, Texas 23 Indivisible, Last Chance Ministries, Mi Familia Vota, Move San Antonio, Pro Immigration Coalition, and Texas Freedom Network. Thanks to the Fair Punishment Project for their non-partisan policy and legal research and preparation for tonight's discussion. Thanks to now cast San Antonio for joining us this evening and live streaming the special event for our entire city to see. This program was made possible by generous community contributions, ACLU, Texas, and Move San Antonio. And finally, thank you to Democratic primary candidate's district attorney Nico Le Hood and candidate Joe Gonzalez for being part of this important community conversation. February is National bailout month, a time dedicated to supporting incarcerated individuals and families of incarcerated men and women who cannot be released from jail due to their inability to financially pay for bail. Community groups throughout San Antonio are working together to pay bail fees throughout February. If you are here this evening and have a loved one in the Bayer County Jail and want to inquire about this program, please go upstairs after the program and visit with one of the volunteers. Let me go after over a little few of our format rules for this evening. We flipped a coin to see who will deliver the first opening statement and answer the initial question, which is Mr. Gonzalez. We'll alternate who answers each question after the initial question. Each candidate will have two minutes to make an opening statement. Representatives from one of our community groups will ask one question, and then each candidate will have two minutes to answer the question. There will be no rebuttal time. I will ask potentially one or two follow-up questions. And again, there will be no rebuttal time. Stationed in the front row will be our time keepers to keep time visually for us. You will get a 30-second warning, which will be one hand up. And then two hands up will mean stop. After the questions, we will have 10 minutes allocated for a rapid response. Yes or no questions. And then some audience questions. And we'll end with closing statements if we have time. And now would you please welcome Joe Gonzalez and Nico LaHood, please. Mr. Gonzalez, you won the coin toss. And so you are free to give your opening statement. Bienvenidos y buenas noches. Es un placer y un honor estar aquí con todos ustedes. Primeramente les quisiera agradecer a los grupos que organizaron este evento. Good evening, and thank you for coming out to hear us out. The first thing I would like to do is to thank those groups that organized this event. This is very important for you all in the community to hear us out and to be able to tell the differences between the two candidates. I want to start by telling you that I know, because I grew up in San Antonio, I have lived here 55 out of my 58 years in this city. So I know this is a working class community. I too come from a working class family. As a matter of fact, I come from a single parent family. My mother raised five of us, my sister is here tonight. She raised us and taught us hard work and values were important. When we were growing up, she struggled to make ends meet for us. I know what it's like to be part of a lunch school program. I know what it's like to not be able to make ends meet. So I understand what it's like to struggle, but through it all, I learned perseverance. One of the things that I value about my mother is that she raised us to become honest citizens. And one of the things I remember her saying is, do the right thing even when no one is looking. I wanted to make her proud. And so I put myself through college. I put myself through law school. I started my career not in a fancy law firm, but as a public servant. I spent eight years as a former prosecutor. I've been blessed to have a successful practice. The reason I'm running folks is I want to give back to the community. I want to come back to the DA's office because I want to continue to be a public servant. I want to make this community safer for you and for me. And with your help, we can do that. Thank you very much for your time. It's fine for questions as well. Sorry, I should have said that beforehand. Mr. Lohood, you have two minutes for your opening statement. You'll have to excuse me if I seem a little distracted. My uncle, my pops brother, my uncle George is in critical condition in the hospital. And so I still wanted to show up because I gave my word that I would show up. And so I'm here. But unfortunately, I will not stay for the whole debate. You know, obviously Joe and I have debated twice and I think we have one more, I believe. But I wanted to talk to you a little bit about this. I wanted us to at least show up and then stay as long as I can. I'm born and raised here. My pop grew up on the west side of Morales Street. My mom went to Harlandale. I spent a lot of time with my grandma on the south side of Clutter and South Florida Street. I'm homegrown and I have some very unique experiences. Experiences that I was criticized on when I ran first time. When I ran against our predecessor that it was here for 16 years and nobody wanted to face her. We all agreed there needed to be a different culture in the office. I stepped up. When nobody else wanted to step up. No disrespect to Joe, he didn't step up. My Republican opponent didn't step up, but I stepped up. And it didn't work out the first time. But then I stepped up again because we really needed something different. And so we did that. And so with your help, believe it or not, with everyone in this room's help at one point in a campaign, we made a difference. And I'm proud of the work that we have done in the office. I say we, I mean, I'm really moved and touched that there's so many prosecutors on those back rows with four rows that have really accepted the culture of true justice. Our oath is to ensure justice is done. What does that mean? Did we get it right? We work for a lady that wears a blindfold. She doesn't look at political persuasion. She doesn't look at gender, race, anything else. She looks at the law and the facts and does the right thing no matter what. My own experiences give me very unique perspective on the justice system. Everyone knows, and I was criticized for it, that I was arrested for selling drugs when I was young and stupid. I was labeled everything you can think of. But I turned my life around, I changed my life around, I understand redemption, I know what it takes. Two years later, my brother was murdered on August 15th, 1996 in my parents' driveway. I know what it's like to mop blood off your driveway and load your brother's body on a gurney and hear your mom cry the way only a mom can cry. So I bring those experiences to the office and I also bring a toughness. Is it my time or 30 seconds? No, that was my time. That was my time? I missed the 30 seconds. I'm looking forward to answering as many questions as I can. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you, gentlemen. I'll go ahead and get started with the questions. Money, we'll talk about equal access to justice. Money continues to be a barrier to justice throughout Bear County. The use of money bail keeps poor people in jail simply because they cannot afford to buy their release while mandatory fines and fees mean that poor people cannot access diversion and deferred adjudication. Our next district attorney must make justice equally available to rich and poor alike. Good evening, my name is Steph Martinez and I am a student organizer with the Texas Freedom Network and Texas Rising. We are a statewide nonprofit that organizes students on their campuses around LGBTQ equality, reproductive justice, voting rights and criminal justice. My question tonight is, will you support the complete abolition of money bail? Why or why not? If not, will you commit to immediately opposing money bonds in all misdemeanor cases in all nonviolent felony cases? Well, first of all, Steph, thank you for coming out here and thank you for being a part of the process. Given that you're so young, you're already on the right track and I applaud you for that. And I do have an answer for that, but I will tell you that before I go there, that what I believe is you don't get to keep your job just because you take somebody out. Donald Trump is gonna learn that the hard way and so the reason I'm running is because I think that we need a change and one of the things that is one of my platform issues is reforming the bail bond system and because I believe that a person should not languish in jail, should not sit in jail waiting for a court date because he cannot afford to bond out and I am committed to doing something about it because I believe that the District Attorney's Office can do that. There's a lot that prosecutors can do to agree to what are called PR bonds, personal reconnaissance bonds for nonviolent offenders, first time offenders. So I absolutely will commit to doing that as far as total abolition of money bail or cash bail as it's called. I believe that that's a good idea in theory and obviously that's something that we have to see work in progress, but I do support it. I do think that you ought not to make a difference between the rich and the poor. You've got two different people, one is charged with murder and or rather they're both charged with murder but one of them can get out on a bond because he's got the money to get out and the other individual is poor, he languishes in jail, that's not right. It shouldn't be about whether or not you can get out of jail because you've got the funds to do it. I would definitely agree to let's agree to get these people out as long as they're not a danger to the community, right? That's the most important thing. We have to ensure the safety of the community and if that's taken care of, then certainly we can agree to that. Thank you. Mr. LaHood. When you say you're for a reform bailing then that's a tagline and that's fine but what are you gonna do? What's broken about the system? I was a magistrate for two years and I will tell you this. I look at the statistics, there's 4,200 people in jail, the Violent Crimes Task Force which is a joint task force from the DA's office, SAPD, Bear County Sheriff's Office DPS, some federal agents working together made 5,500 arrests last year for violent offenders. We had a decrease in homicides by 16%. We had a decrease in assault, aggravated assaults, robbery. Part one offenses under the Uniform Crime Report went down from 16 to 17, 2016 to 17. That's something that's, that's because people are working together. There is nobody languishing in jail for a low level nonviolent offense. They're just not. I mean the statistics just do not say that. So you can't say that people are languishing in jail. You have to bring specifics. That's just not accurate. And I don't know if he just doesn't know or he's intentionally saying that, but it's not there. Everybody that's in jail either has a blue warrant, has a felony bond, has conditions of bond, a violation of a bond, a motion to revoke, something significant. I assure you, no one is just sitting in jail for a low level misdemeanor nonviolent offense. When I was a magistrate, we were encouraged and really expected by the district court judges that appointed us to give PR bonds. We gave PR bonds for any low level nonviolent misdemeanor case, whether you qualified on the PR schedule or not and there's a certain requirement that goes an evaluation. And even for low level felony cases, nonviolent felony cases, automatic PR bond. But one of the things you have to consider, is that 30 seconds? One of the, thank you ma'am. One of the things that you have to consider is availability. The bond is for two reasons. It's not punitive. A purpose of a bond is to protect you and to ensure that the citizen accused showed up, shows up to court. That's it. It's punitive in nature. So we do not do that. A magistrate judge at the mags office deals with the bond. It's reviewed by a district judge or a court judge. Do we have an opinion? Sure. Can we file a motion to increase bond? If there's a violation of a bond and a victim is being victimized still, then yes we can but it's a magistrate issue mainly. Thank you for your time. Bear County's diversion program currently comes with a mandatory application fee and mandatory participation fee. These are currently payable to the district attorney's office and cannot be waived even if a defendant is indigent. Will you commit to making a diversion free for all defendants who are eligible to participate? Why or why not? Mr. Hood. Well, first of all, the diversion programs that we started in these last three years had never been seen before in Bear County. My predecessor had a diversion program for 17 to 21 year olds and for certain offenses. We expanded the misdemeanor diversion program to everybody, to anyone in here and there's different ages. Some people more seasoned and some people less seasoned. I'll say it that way. But for everybody, it shouldn't just be for 17 to 21 year olds. And so we expanded that. We expanded pre-child diversion to felony that never been done in Bear County before. So, and that was a good thing. Now, is it perfect? Can it be made better? Absolutely. I mean, if anybody tells you they're gonna be perfect in office or out of office, you really need to consider what they're saying. So I can tell you that our intent in the office is perfect. Will you sit down with me and talk to me and show me? Ms. Niko, can we consider this disc? Absolutely. And for an indigency, because I did court appointed cases. My first 24 trials, my first two years were all court appointed cases. Absolutely we'll consider that and adjust the program as needed to make sure that everybody is treated fairly. It doesn't matter what you have or where you come from. Everybody needs to be treated fairly. Mr. Gonzalez. Well, the problem is that under Niko's administration, he's talked a bit. Your microphone is on. Sorry. What I said was, he's talked about diversionary programs, but it's taken him three years to get to this point. He's not done anything different than anything significantly different than his predecessor. And this is a program under his administration that is a pay to play. In order for someone to qualify to be accepted into the pre-trial diversion program, you have to pay an application fee. If people don't even have enough money to make ends meet, if they don't have enough money to go to HEB and buy groceries, how are they gonna have enough money to pay for his diversionary program application fee? The other thing is there's a fine attached to that. If you're looking to grant someone diversion and give them an opportunity to divert away from the system, you don't charge them a fee. You don't make them come up with the money in order to be part of the system. So there's a lot that can be done. That's just like his program with Sight and Release. That law was passed and legislation was approved back in 2007. He's been office since 2014. He's just now talking about Sight and Release when he discovered he had an opponent. It's time to do something about it now. It's time to not just talk about it but actually get moving on it. And that's something I will do when elected to this office. I wanna move on to a question about the criminal justice system and immigration. In the last year, undocumented communities have come under attack because of increasingly vicious federal immigration laws. Our next district attorney must take affirmative steps to protect members of our vulnerable communities. Good evening, my name is Rosie Obobara. I'm the chair of Texas 23 Indivisibles. We are a grassroots movement that works to fight against the Trump agenda specifically in congressional district 23. My question is 2017 saw an increase in violent crime and hate speech against our vulnerable brothers and sisters, especially in the Muslim community. The district attorney is more than the head prosecutor. He's a role model and more, he's a role model who represents the diverse population of Bear County, which includes people of all races, religion and citizenship status. What our DA says in public on the radio and in the press has real life consequences for the residents of Bear County. What will you do to remain fair and justice towards every resident in Bear County, free of religious or cultural bias and prejudice? Thank you. Yes, Mr. Gregg. Thank you, Mrs. Obobara for that question. And I'll tell you that I agree with everything that you said because I believe that as the elected DA, that person is a top prosecutor in the county and people do look to him for his leadership. And I believe that it's incumbent upon the elected district attorney to be tolerant of other religions, to be tolerant of other faiths and to be tolerant of immigrants. My opponent has gone on record as being anti-Muslim and anti-immigration and even though he doesn't admit to it, he's on record. He has gone on talk radio saying that he's anti-sanctuary cities and it's hard for him to take that back. You can't have it both ways. And so I absolutely agree with you that you have to be open, you have to be tolerant and not be divisive about that issue because this is a melting pot. This country is made up, look around the room, it's made up of people that come from different countries and different nationalities and it's gonna continue to do that. And the quicker we accept it and the quicker we embrace our brothers, the better off we're going to be. That's okay. Well, first of all, really quick, I mean, the site release is not something we're thinking of doing, we're doing it. It's already been done, okay? So, I mean, you can just make a statement and say and hope it's true. I mean, we're already doing the site release and the pre-trial diversion program, Joe, you know this. We talked about this when we were office-ing together. It has never been done to this level before and now it's in the felony program. It was never there under Susan and you know that as well. Number one, I have Muslim friends, I have Hindu friends, I have Buddhist friends, I have agnostic friends, I have Shintoist friends and there's people and they work for us that have different face and world views and there's not one example, excuse me? Oh, there's not one example of me treating anybody any differently. The question was asked for me when we were talking about the Constitution because if Joe were to be the DA, every DA takes an oath to protect and defend the Constitution was a question on a scenario about Shadiah Law versus the Constitution. Every DA, every judge, Republican or Democrat or independent has to say that they're going to support and defend the Constitution. That's an oath. If you can't take that oath, then you can't be the DA, you can't be a judge, you can't be law enforcement, that's just a fact. That was the context of that. Now, I've had discussions, like I said, there's people in this audience right here that work with us and I promise you, you won't find they're here. You won't find me treating anybody any differently and there's not an example of that. You can't just call me names, Joe, and then not have an example. That's like me saying, you're guilty of theft, but then have no evidence of it. You have to bring a manner and means and if that's the kind of DA he's going to be, I think that's kind of scary. My brother-in-law is in Mexico. He's been waiting 10 years to get here. My wife's from Mexico. I'm not anti-immigration. I want my brother here. So how can I be anti in 30 seconds? I can't be anti-immigration. When people ask about sanctuary cities, you have to take it further. What does that mean? Does that mean that you don't want to enforce federal laws? I mean, we have federal laws that have to be enforced. We have to have order. I mean, so I don't understand what sanctuary cities, we have to talk about a definition. I'm for supporting DACA students. I think that's a separate issue than sanctuary cities. I don't think a child should be punished for the behavior of somebody else that's unfair. That's not justice. And so that's a whole separate issue. So again, I like discussions instead of labeling and this campaign has turned into name calling and it's unfortunate. Before we go to our next, please, please refrain from applause. Before we go to our next immigration question, I want to follow up on site and release. Site and release will only work if law enforcement agrees to ticket instead of arrest defendants eligible for the program. Will you commit to declining charges on any defendant who is arrested instead of ticketed for a class C misdemeanor to send a strong message to law enforcement that site and release is to be implemented? Reverend, with all due respect, may I correct that just a little bit? A class C misdemeanor, you don't get arrested anyway. So you're talking about for a class B misdemeanor up. There are things that a DA has authority over and things that DA has influence over. I cannot make the law enforcement community use site and release. The 2007 law doesn't make law enforcement use site and release. It's a discretion. It's an option for them. What we did, we wanted to take it further. We did a best practices study of Travis County, Dallas County, Harris County, and counties outside of Texas because under the current law, you give a summons. That person still gets arrested later because the officer stays on the street and then the person still ends up in county court. Our program is very unique. The officer gives the summons. The person given the summons shows up at the sheriff's office within 30 days, gets identified, not arrested. You don't get a SID number. You get tracked. We have to track people to make sure they show up to court. They show up to court three weeks later. They're given a 90 day program. If they follow the program and do everything appropriately, their case never gets filed. They never have to pay for bond. They never have to pay for an attorney because we're gonna have the public defender there. They never have to pay for an expunction. I mean, this is true justice for everybody. They don't have to pay a high powered lawyer or get a court opponent. They don't need either one of them. They're gonna be treated fairly in everybody. Now, if we see trends of law enforcement that are treating people differently, I'm gonna be calling the chief. I'm gonna be calling the sheriff. I'm gonna be working with the 46 other agencies around Bear County that we deal with when they eventually get it, 30 seconds, and then we're gonna have a discussion because everyone needs to be treated fairly. And if you ask any one of these fine people that work for you in the office, there's not one of them will tell you when no cameras are there, when it's just us, when nobody's around, Joe, when it's just me, God, and the people in front of me, they know that I'm consistent in my behavior. We're not always gonna agree, folks. I mean, if anybody tells you that they're gonna agree with you on every topic, they're lying to you. But I promise you I'll always meet, like with the 15 town hall meetings, never in the history of the United States as a D8 on 15 town hall meetings, not taking cards, open mic, and have discussion live feeding. It's never happened before, and I'm doing that. Well, that would be nice if you were able to conduct those town hall meetings without yelling at people and without intimidating them like you have been, and that's on video. And anybody, all you need to do is look at those videos to show that you're challenging the citizens. That's part of the platform of this race is your temperament, Niko. And if you'll respond to the site and release question. And so with regard to site and release, it's the same issue that I've been running on. What has taken Niko so long? This is 2018. You've been office since January 2015. It doesn't take three years to implement site and release. You've been sitting on your laurels. You've been sitting on your hands. And now, because you realize you have an opponent, now because you realize you might lose your job, you decided to do something about site and release. That's something that could have and should have been done a long time ago. And I'm sorry that you don't like it and I'm sorry that your supporters don't like it, but that's the cold reality of it, Niko. Sir Reverend, that's just a lie. So if I may respond to that with your permission. I'm gonna go ahead and stick to the no rebuttal. You'll have another opportunity to debate. That's just not true, so, uh-oh. I wanna go ahead. Go ahead. Hello. We have another question. My name is Rebecca Flores and I'm with a pro-immigrant coalition. This is a coalition that was formed four days after Senate Bill 4 was signed by Governor Abbott. 350 members with 12 organizations. So there was a big overwhelming support against Senate Bill 4 in the city of San Antonio. My question is this. The old convictions that a person has can have serious immigration consequences, even for low level offenses. Will you commit to following Harris County's lead and cooperating with efforts to challenge or vacate old convictions by immigrants seeking to avoid deportation? Mr. Gonzalez. Hi, absolutely. Microphone please. If the question is, will I support efforts against SB4? The answer is absolutely, because I think that that's that law enforcement. And by the way, he mentioned earlier that elected DA has to follow immigration law. It's not the function. It's not the purpose of a state prosecutor to enforce federal law. That's what ICE does. That's what the federal courts do. And that's not something that he should be worried about. And that's what happened. And I'll tell you, I called our Chief McMannets. I'm here to say Chief McMannets did the right thing by releasing those people, because that's not his job. We have to look at whether or not these people that are here and are undocumented have the ability to have the confidence to be able to come out of the shadows and be productive citizens. He says he doesn't know what sanctuary cities is. He doesn't know what the definition of that is. Ask anybody who's fearful of going to court because they think they're gonna get deported. Ask any parent who thinks that they're gonna lose their right to be in this country, or their privilege to be in this country if they step forward. They could tell you what a sanctuary city is. They could tell you that they fear law enforcement officials and government officials and prosecutors who don't support their ability to have a pathway to citizenship. And that's wrong, and I oppose it. Well, first of all, he didn't answer the question. And ma'am, I think your question was, will the DA support reversing convictions, correct? Yes, once we lose jurisdiction and it's out of our power, plenary power is to a judge, out of our power, we can't control that. That would have to be legislative. So I wanna answer your question and not distract everybody by calling me names. I wanna answer your question. And so we can't. So that's outside of what a DA can do. So anybody that says they can do that either doesn't know what they're talking about and they shouldn't be the DA or they're not telling the truth and that's not a good characteristic being DA. So he doesn't know my conversations with Chief McManus. So he just called me a bunch of names, made a lot of allegations with zero evidence. This is the characteristic of the type of DA he's gonna be. That is shameful, Joe. That's terrible. I mean, you have no idea. So you didn't answer a question and started calling me names about sanctuary cities or I'm anti-immigration or the Chief did the right thing. Why did the Chief do the right thing? And he has no idea what conversations we had, what I had with Chief McManus. We're working together. Let me tell you, I'm the one that was at the courthouse with Nelson Wolfe and Chief McManus saying SB4 is not good. I was there. You can look at any news. I'm in Jasper City. You can look it up in the Express News or on TV, KSAT had it. They all covered it. I said no. I'm the one that called ICE and our office behind the scenes not trying to get attention from anybody and said don't come to our courthouse and look for illegal immigrants because our victims are leaving. It happened three times and you're gonna hear from me. We already have special status for people that are witnesses or victims. So there's, and we try to educate them and let them know, yes ma'am, and try to let them know that we're not here to deport you. That's not our job. Our job is to protect you. And so that is, we're working with defense attorneys, Jorge Arostatiles and many other people adjusting the pre-child diversion program. I just had a meeting about it a while back to say look, let's make sure that immigrants aren't punished. The DACA students aren't punished for what their parents did and we're gonna make some adjustments on our pre-child diversion program for them because it's the right thing to do. Not the political thing. And by the way, on site release, it takes years and he has no idea what it took to get that program going. We had to recreate a whole new computer system. And so he's lodging attacks again with no information about what it takes to start a site release program. It is a long process and I started it way before I knew I had any opponents and it's irrelevant about you or the other opponents. So we're gonna, knowing that you have a family situation you've asked to go, what we're gonna do and what the organizers have asked me to do is we're gonna let you have a two minute closing statement. You can exit at that point and then we'll continue with the questions that were prepared by our organizations for Mr. Gonzalez. So Mr. LaHood, the floor is yours. I'll sit down, I guess we'll just sit down. Folks, there's a saying amongst trial lawyers and Joe's a trial lawyer. And I said it the other night, Joe, when you have the law on your side, you argue the law. When you have the facts on your side, you argue the facts. When you have neither, you attack opposing counsel. His whole campaign has been attacks, calling me names, trying to label me something that I'm not. That is a scary proposition using false information like a 62% dismissal rate for domestic violence cases. That is not true. And anyone that wants to show up to any one of our town hall meetings or the coffee that I'm gonna have this weekend or next week, wherever you wanna do, show up with me with no time limits, no disrespect Reverend or anything else. And we can have a full discussion. I will talk it out with you and I will tell you that everything that he's calling me or the name calling, all the false accusations are false. And it's shameful. This campaign is based off of name calling. It dishonors the office of the DA that belongs to you and it's based off revenge. That's the bottom line because there's no substance in the basis of why he's running. If you look at all his commercials, all his mailers, they're all just dishonest and disingenuous sound bites with no substance. And the last two debates, Joe, we've seen that. I've been in this community all my life. I grew up on the South side with my grandma. My pop grew up on the West side. I've had the experiences that I shared with you early on. I was a passionate defense attorney, Joe, for 13 years. All the years that I office with Joe, not once did he say, man, Nico, if you don't make it, I want to run for DA. It's never been that way. This was a last minute home, guys. It was a last minute deal. And it's because of revenge. And you know that, Joe, and you know why. And we won't talk about the murder case, but you know why this is where it is. And I'm happy to talk about this. I'm sorry that I have to leave, folks. I'm sorry. But I gave my word to show up. And you ask anybody that works with me, my word means something. I don't know, Joe, to interviews, because this is an interview to see who you want to fire. He's asking you to fire me and hire him and then try to beat the Republican in the general election. But he's not giving you any substance to do that behind besides name calling. I'm here. I've served you honorably in my humble opinion for more than three years. I thank you for your support the first time. I look forward to serving you some more. God willing, and with your help. And I promise you I'll meet with you anytime you want to. And I'll continue this conversation, but please excuse me that I have to leave. My uncle is in very serious condition, but I still wanted to show up. Thank you very much for the opportunity. We'll move on with our prepared questions. People will talk about charging and sentencing. People are more than their worst acts, and even people who commit the most serious offenses often change their lives profoundly over time. To recognize the worth and potential for growth in all people, our district attorney's office must strive to implement charging and sentencing policies that take into account the needs, character, and background of each person. Hello, I'm Jeanette Reyes. Good evening. So I'm with Big Homie and all of us are none. And we work with at-risk youth to provide violence intervention. And this is created by the agenda of all of us are none, which is a national movement formed by formerly incarcerated individuals. We push for policy changes on criminal justice at the local and national level. So my question to you is drug abuse and addiction is a serious health crisis in our community. Research has consistently shown that incarceration does not address addiction and only exacerbates cycles of poverty. So will you agree to A, offer free diversion to all marijuana possession less than four ounces so that people arrested with marijuana are never prosecuted in the first place? And B, never ask for incarceration for possession of less than one gram of all other controlled substances? Reyes, thank you for that question. I think that is a very important question because I think the root of a lot of the rest that are drug related are because people are hooked on drugs. And I think that there's a lot that the DA's office can do to focus on that problem and to really alleviate, rather, drug addiction. And so I would absolutely commit, number one, to the first question or A, as you mentioned, and absolutely agree to diversionary programs for misdemeanor low level marijuana possessions. There are some states that have already legalized marijuana and some would argue that's a trend in this country. Texas is not there. It may take years for Texas to be there but we have to recognize that sometimes marijuana possessions have more to do with drug addictions than they have to do with criminality. So absolutely, I would agree and accept diversionary and offer diversionary programs. And I would do more than that, Nico, and what I'm gonna try not to do, I'm gonna try not to attack him because he's not there and it's not fair that he doesn't have a right to defend himself. I'm sorry that he's having that situation so I'm gonna try real hard not to do that but I will tell you that when he was in trouble he got deferred adjudication for possession with intent to deliver 200 ecstasy pills. He got diversion, he was able to wipe that off his record. Today if someone were arrested for that he could not get the benefit that he got and that's wrong. You can't kick the ladder out from under you and not offer what you got when you were in that situation. That's one of the things that I would do is I would ensure that we would expand the diversionary programs to include the less than a gram state jail felony drug cases. Prosecutors across the country regularly overcharge defendants bringing multiple charges for a single act or charges that are more serious than the conduct warrants just to pressure defendants to give up their constitutional rights and plead guilty. Will you adopt a policy to charge the least serious acceptable charge so that the charge more accurately reflects the alleged conduct and does not create artificial incentives for a defendant to plead guilty? Absolutely, that's part of the problem with the DA's office is the lack of training. There are prosecutors in that office that have not been adequately trained to review a case and to be able to indict it properly. There's a case where the fourth court of appeals reversed because the entire case ended up being a monumental waste of time. All the prosecutor had to do was to follow the template and you know that in that case he was not even able to fully name the name of the defendant because of that, that person languished in jail for several months. That case was taken up to the fourth court of appeals and that case was reversed based on the incompetence of Nico's administration because somebody is falling asleep at the wheel. One of the things that I would do in that office is to absolutely ensure that we properly train the prosecutors that we look for the least restrict or I should say the offense that fits the facts and not the most serious offense if it doesn't fit. I've got a case right now in another county where an individual who was 16 years old was charged with manslaughter and was certified to stand trial as an adult that should not have happened that would not have happened here in Baird County under my watch. I'm gonna move on to juvenile justice. Children's brains continue developing until around the age of 25 and research supports their enhanced capacity for rehabilitation. As a result, children should not be prosecuted in adult court nor should they be given punishments that preclude the opportunity for redemption. Our district attorney should treat children consistent with neurological development at every stage in the criminal justice system. Good evening, my name is Anna Sophia Gonzalez and I'm a field intern with Move San Antonio. Move San Antonio is a grassroots nonpartisan nonprofit building power in underrepresented youth communities through civic education, leadership development and issue advocacy. Our question is this, will you commit to never seeking transfer to adult court for juveniles 16 and younger? For juveniles who are 16, will you commit to never seeking transfer to adult court unless the charge defense is a capital felony and the juvenile already has a conviction for a prior first degree or capital felony? I don't think it's unreasonable to ask a prosecutor not to transfer someone for an offense that's less than capital, it's almost as if I anticipated that question. That's exactly the situation that we have in that other county. Part of the reason I'm running folks is I'm coming to this office with job experience. I spent eight years as a prosecutor. I handled over a hundred jury trials as a prosecutor, not four like he did before he was elected, but over a hundred. And I spent time in the juvenile section. I was a chief prosecutor in the juvenile section in Harris County and I was involved with reviewing whether or not to certify individuals or children as they're called for certification. And so absolutely that's what we would do is we would focus on only the most serious offenses, only those cases where the only alternative, the only remedy is to certify a juvenile. There is a lot that the juvenile system can do and there's a lot that the DA's office can do to participate in that because in the juvenile system it's about rehabilitating the youthful offender and certainly that's something that the DA's office should be focusing on. So would you decline to ask for sentences that are de facto life without parole for any person under the age of 21 at the time of the offense? I think it would be difficult to commit to that knowing, knowing or not knowing the facts of that individual case. It's unfair to expect a prosecutor to commit to saying I would never ask for a basically what you're talking about is a non-death capital case involving someone who's 18 or 19 years old. It's difficult to say because there are exceptions to every rule. I will tell you that under my administration it would certainly be an extreme situation where we would be seeking even a non-death capital on an 18 years or 19 years old unless the facts merited that sort of punishment. Children are less able to make an informed decision when deciding to talk to the police. Will you vocally support a policy that prohibits the interview or interrogation of a child either as a witness, suspect, complainant, or respondent by law enforcement without the presence of a parent or guardian? Well, again, that's one of the differences between my opponent and I. Before he was elected DA, he spent his time representing DWI defendants. He was a DWI lawyer. That's what he did for a living and because of that he didn't have a lot of experience handling complicated cases where I have and that's the difference between he and I. And I absolutely would take every step to ensure that those individuals weren't exposed to those kinds of punishments. I'm gonna ask the audience to refrain from making comments. Please. He's gonna get to answer the way he gets to answer. You can make decisions based on that. It's unfortunate, Mr. Lowhood can't answer. There will be another debate. But I'm gonna ask you to refrain from comment. I'm gonna move back to site and release. Arrest and detention even if short term disrupts families and communities and can lead to job loss and housing insecurity. Site and release practices can replace disruptive arrests with ticketing for low level offenses which allowed district attorneys to hold the individual responsible for conduct without risk of the devastating consequence of jail time. Good evening, everyone. My name is Selena Gomez and I'm here with Mi Familia Vota. We're a national nonpartisan nonprofit organization that looks to leverage and increase Latino participation and also advocates for issues such as voting rights and immigration. And this question is due to the possible deportation after this process is done. So the Baird County's recent site and release program includes the misdemeanor of driving with an invalid driver's license but it does not include driving without a license or no license. Which would ultimately protect our immigrant communities and foster trust and local and law enforcement. Will you commit to adding driving without a driver's license to the site and release program? Absolutely, those types of offenses are what we call victimless offenses. There's no true victim, no one has been hurt. There's no reason that we can't agree to cite those individuals and just give them their day in court. So I would absolutely agree to include that sort of an offense with the other programs. Again, it's the issue of what's taken so long. If we were going to do the site and release, we could have done this a long time ago. We're way behind the times, we need to catch up, we need to have a leader who's going to actually implement it and just not talk about it. Our final area of programming questions is transparency and accountability. Our district attorney's success depends on building and maintaining with the community he serves. Our next district attorney must increase transparency and accountability by providing the community with information about arrest rates, charging decisions, and sentencing policies. He must also commit to rigorously and independently investigating and prosecuting police and other official misconduct. Good evening, my name's H. Drew Galloway, I'm the executive director of Moo San Antonio. I'm asking this question on behalf of Last Chance Ministries. For all cases involving police misconduct, including police involved shootings, violence, corruption, or fraud, will you commit to a full investigation to include presentation before a grand jury? Again, it is difficult to commit to a conclusion or a plan of action without having all the facts in front of you, but I will tell you that I think that the common sense approach is to fully investigate a case that is brought to the district attorney's office, even one, or I should say especially one, that involves a police officer because the community is going to be outraged, the community is going to be concerned that the DA's office is going to whitewash that investigation. So I would absolutely encourage my prosecutors to conduct full investigations, and there's a reason we have a grand jury process, folks, because we want the citizens, members of that grand jury, to make the ultimate decisions about whether or not there's sufficient evidence to indict a case. I've said for years, again, remember, I spent eight years doing this before I ever became a defense lawyer. I used to say all the time, I could walk into a grand jury proceeding with a stack of files, tell the grand jury anything I wanted to, and that would direct whether or not a case was going to be true billed or no billed. I think that there are times when we absolutely need to use that grand jury process the way it was meant to do, and I will commit to doing just that. Will you commit to maintaining and publishing data quarterly, including the number of misdemeanor and felony cases filed each month, disposition statistics, pretrial incarceration rates, and length of stay by offense category, and average bond for each class of offense so that the community can determine the effectiveness of policies aimed at reform? That's not an unreasonable request. Of course, I think, of course, I can commit to doing that. I don't think it would take very much manpower to do that. As a matter of fact, I will tell you that I remember at least one of my former employees required that of us, where after each day, we would log in what we did and we would turn those reports and then that was published at the end of the month. So that's certainly something that can be done and it should be done. And will you make public all internal policies and directives regarding discretionary decision, such as plea bargaining, diversion program, eligibility and acceptance, deferred adjudication and sentencing requests? Again, I don't think that's anything unreasonable. As long as it didn't do anything to violate the rights of victims, as long as there wasn't any information in those documents that would compromise victims' addresses and phone numbers and jobs, certainly I don't think that's anything that's unreasonable and I certainly would look to try and do that because it transparency is important. That's one of the reasons that Nikol drew some criticism this year when he banned the express news during that press conference and the elected DA has to be transparent, not just because they're competent to you but even and especially when they're criticizing you. So absolutely, there's gotta be transparency in that office. I'm gonna move to some rapid fire questions. We have placards under your chair for no or yes, but since it's just you, if you'd prefer just to say yes or no to these questions, that's fine. Will you commit, yes or no? Will you commit to a policy seeking the least severe acceptable punishment in all cases? Yes. Yes or no? Attorneys appointed to represent indigent defendants make $140 per misdemeanor case no matter how much work they put in. This payment structure creates disincentives to effective representation. Will you commit to supporting an optional hourly payment schedule for appointed attorneys like the one that's an effect in Dallas County? Yes. Yes or no? Each death prosecution costs taxpayers on average $2.3 million. Minorities are more likely to be selected for death prosecutions and more likely to be sentenced to death. Knowing the disparate impact of the death penalty, will you commit to ending this racist and expensive practice and never seek the death penalty? Death penalty. Yes or no? Yes. Yes or no? Under our current asset forfeiture scheme, the district attorney's office can seize property from people even if they've never been convicted of a crime, which goes directly to the offices of the DA and law enforcement. Will you commit to not prosecuting asset forfeiture cases unless the asset is the direct proceeds of a crime for which the defendant has been convicted? Yes. Access to information promotes fairness, congeniality and the early resolution either through pleas or dismissals of criminal cases. Yes or no? Will you create an open file discovery system to provide information to defense counsel as you receive it even before indictment? Yes. Recognizing that defendants would not be convicted today for marijuana possession, San Francisco just expunged and sealed old convictions for marijuana possession. Yes or no? Would you support a similar initiative in Bear County? Yes. Wrongful convictions have plagued Texas statewide. Advances, and this is in two parts, advances in forensic science and false confession, studies have led to thousands of exonerations where DNA or other evidence that may lead to exoneration is in your possession, will you commit to always making that evidence available for independent testing should the defense ask to test? Yes. I'm sorry, that was just a one-parter. The prosecution of quality of life offenses imposes a poverty penalty while doing nothing to increase community safety. Knowing this, will you commit to not prosecuting prostitution? Yes. The opioid epidemic is a public health crisis and shows no signs of abating. Will you commit to adopting an office-wide good Samaritan policy stating that individuals who call the police in response to a drug overdose will not be prosecuted? Yes. Yes or no? Fines and fees disproportionately impact people in poverty and current sanctions exacerbate the underlying causes of poverty. Will you commit to never ask for driver's license suspensions for non-payment of fines or fees? Yes. Yes or no? Will you support the de-escalation of drug penalties for low-level possession from a state jail felony for less than a gram of a narcotic to a class A misdemeanor? Yes. I believe I have some audience questions that have been turned in. That should be brought to me, no? Okay. So I wanna move then to Mr. Gonzalez, you have two minutes for closing remarks. Folks, once again, I wanna thank you for taking the time out to come and listen to us, listen to the responses to the questions that have been asked so that hopefully you can glean the difference between my opponent and I. Part of the reason that I'm running is like some of you I supported Nico when he ran, but I've been extremely disappointed in his failure to lead that office. I am running because it's time for change. I am running because I believe that I can make a true difference and it's now time to clean up our streets and it's time to make our communities safer for you and for me. Another reason that I'm running is you have seen in the paper and in social media that temperament is an issue and we have to have someone in that office that has the appropriate amount of temperament that treats the parties in the courts with respect. We're not seeing that today. The DA's office is treating defense lawyers, victims and witnesses with disrespect. That will not happen under my administration. I also have a vision for bringing true reform to the office. I want to reform the bail system so that people don't languish and I'm sorry I disagree with Nico but all he has to do is go to the jail court every week and he'll see the people that are sitting in jail waiting to just go to court to take a plea bargain because they don't want to sit in jail. They want to go home with their families. I also want to focus on violent crime so there is a lot that can be done. There is a lot that I will do with your help and with your vote. Let's bring safety back to this community. I ask for your vote, March 6th. Thank you. I want to give a special thanks again to Big Homie Street Mentoring, Texas 23 Indivisible Last Chance Ministries, Mi Familia Vota, Move San Antonio, Pro Immigration Coalition, Texas Freedom Network Nowcast San Antonio, ACLU Texas Fair Punishment Project, the District Attorney Nico LaHood and candidate Joe Gonzalez. I want to remind you that early voting for the March primary begins Tuesday, February 20th through Friday, March 2nd. Election Day is on Tuesday, March 6th. If you have any questions about voting in Bear County, please see Move San Antonio this evening. Or for those watching at home, visit Bear County, I'm sorry, bear.org and click on elections. This concludes our 2018 District Attorney Forum. Thank you everyone for joining us this evening. Have a good night.