Democrat Candidate for 3rd Court of Appeals Stumps in San Angelo

SAN ANGELO, TX — District Judge Gisela Triana, a Democrat, was stumping in San Angelo for a place on the 3rd Court of Appeals. In Texas, we elect our state judges and Election Day is Nov. 6.

“I want you to vote for me because I am the best qualified for this job,” she told a room full of Tom Green County Democrats gathered for their monthly meeting at the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts Monday night.

Triana gave a rundown of her experience, starting as a prosecutor, then as a City of Austin Municipal Court Judge, then Travis County Justice of the Peace for Precinct 5. She sat as a Judge for the Travis County Court at Law #5 before being elected District Judge for the 200th Judicial District of Texas in Travis County.

She said she is ready for the 3rd Court of Appeals, and its jurisdiction that stretches from Schulenburg in Fayette County in the east to Mertzon in Irion County in the west. The court is based in Austin and also hears appeals of cases involving the state government. The 3rd Court of Appeals also covers Tom Green County. One recent well-known case of this appellate court involved the appeal of Justin Riordan, a Miles man convicted for aggravated sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl at a house party. The court denied Riordan’s appeal.

There are six judges who sit on the 3rd Court of Appeals. Four of the seats are up for election in November. The incumbent for Place 6, Judge Robert Pemberton, a Republican, did not seek re-election.

Triana is running for Justice Pemberton’s seat on the court. Her Republican opponent, Michael Toth, she said, is not as prepared for the higher court as she is. “Not every lawyer is fit to be judge,” she argued. An attorney is paid to argue his or her side, but experience as a judge is vital, she said, because good judges are required to listen to all sides.

Michael Toth, is younger, and served in the U.S. Marine Corps for four years after earning his degree from Stanford University in 2001 and a J.D. from law school at the University of Virginia in 2006.

Triana stressed that she has been practicing law for 23 years, much of that time as a sitting judge, while her opponent’s legal career primarily involves working for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton as a special counsel.

“If I am elected to this court, I will be the only judge there who has served at every level of court in Texas,” Triana said. The 52-year-old judge earned her BA at the University of Texas-San Antonio in 1985 and her law degree from the University of Texas in 1988.

Triana is the daughter of Cuban immigrants. She said in high school she learned about how the rule of law preserved our liberties in this country and was hooked ever since. That led to her lifelong career in the law.

Triana said she preferred for the judgeships to not be elected positions in Texas, but that is the way it is. As an elected district court judge, she believes she has demonstrated that if the right person is elected, a judge can see through balanced outcomes.

In West Texas, there is a tension between the oil producers and environmentalists who demand protection of the endangered species, usually some kind of lizard like this one.

In an exclusive interview, I asked Triana is she for the oil companies and economic growth, or the lizards?

“I’m for neither. I’m for justice,” she said. “It depends on what they are in front of me for, and it depends on who is in front of me. If I’ve got the Sierra Club on one side and I have an oil company on the other side, I can tell you that personally, my loyalty would be to the Sierra Club. That’s how I view the world. But on the bench, I don’t get to rule that way. Instead I rule the way that the law tells me I have to rule.” There are many competing factors, she explained, but she concluded that her loyalty on the bench is to the law, a blended mix of Constitutional requirements with years of court precedents decided in years prior.

“You have to apply the law,” she said. “And there may be some in here who don’t want to hear that, but you want it to be that way. That’s because when you’re on the other side, you’ll want to make sure that judge will apply the law fairly and give you justice as well.”

An issue Republicans have raised with the election of new justices for the 3rd Court of Appeals is that since the court’s jurisdiction includes Travis County and the State Capitol, much of the work of the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature could be challenged in that court of appeals. If Democrats gain control of the court, the judiciary could effectively overturn much of the work accomplished by elected Republican legislators. The way it can be done is by legislating from the bench.

Will Justice Triana legislate from the bench?

“I think it’s interesting that the Republicans have co-opted that phrase, ‘legislating from the bench.’ They co-opted that just like they all claim to be ‘Constitutionalists’ and they say ‘We don’t want activist judges’, and ‘We don’t want to legislate from the bench,’” Triana retorted. “And yet, I’m sure that we can come up with some Republican judges who have done exactly that. I think [the argument] gets a bad reputation when you are saying ‘We don’t like legislating from the bench’ after you receive an unfavorable ruling.

“To me, the way I look at it is, I’ve got the law. And I’ll tell you that not only do I have the Constitution and I have the law the legislature passes, but I also have precedent. We have what our Supreme Court tells us is the law that I have to follow. So there’s not a whole lot of wiggle room in certain areas. We don’t make law. You have to have a suit, a cause of action, and a basis for your lawsuit,” she concluded.