Things are going great in the waning days of Kim Ogg’s time as Harris County DA.
Sean Teare
Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg has ordered prosecutors to make a plea recommendation of life without the possibility of parole in every pending capital murder case that’s more than a year old, the Houston Landing has learned.
Ogg’s instruction, delivered last week and detailed in internal communications obtained by the Landing, upends years of office precedent, could complicate prosecutions in more than 60 of the county’s most serious cases and creates uncertainty for victims’ loved ones.
“Kim asked us to place a case note in each pending capital murder in your division that read ‘Ogg administration recommendation is life without parole,’” wrote John Jordan, the agency’s most senior felony prosecutor, to the members of the office’s homicide division, in an email Monday. “We did not discuss the facts of any of your cases during that meeting, nor did we discuss the legal issues, theories or mitigation on any of your cases.”
Jordan declined to comment for this story.
Ogg’s decision, which current and former prosecutors called “unprecedented” and “offensive,” comes less than a month before the two-term incumbent is due to leave office and upsets standard procedures around capital plea recommendations.
Sean Teare, who defeated Ogg in March’s Democratic primary and will take office Jan. 1 after his victory in November’s general election, blasted the blanket recommendation as an “unbelievable” deviation from the norm that could complicate cases ultimately unsuitable for life without parole.
“In my 14 years inside that office, I’ve never ever heard of putting a life without parole (recommendation) on a capital murder before all the evidence and mitigation and everything is in, let alone not talking to the line prosecutor handling the case,” Teare said. “It’s not realistic for a variety of reasons… There’s a potential that there are some innocent people in that group and we’re going to dismiss the case as evidence comes in.”
In a statement to the Landing, Ogg painted a different picture, saying an offer of life without parole on non-death capital cases is typical in Harris County — at least until the office’s Capital Committee, a specialized group of prosecutors, decides otherwise.
“The Harris County District Attorney’s Office has historically recommended a sentence of life without parole on all capital cases in which we have not elected to seek the death penalty,” Ogg said. “Any lesser plea offer must be passed through the Capital Committee and always occurs late in the process of resolving the case.”
Current and former prosecutors and defense lawyers, however, disputed that statement.
“That’s just not true,” said one current prosecutor, who asked that their name be withheld out of concern for repercussions. “We do not make recommendations of life without parole routinely…. Until a case goes to the Capital Committee, there is no offer.”
A spokesperson for Ogg did not reply to a request for further comment.
Teare said the families and loved ones of homicide victims will suffer the impact of Ogg’s decision when some cases inevitably resolve with lesser punishments.
“I don’t understand the benefit (of the change) for anyone, but I certainly know what the negative is — retraumatizing these families that have gone through the most unimaginable tragedy to begin with,” he said. “We’re going to have all these families… feeling like their loved one’s case is just a political ping pong (ball).”
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Murray Newman, a former Harris County prosecutor and defense lawyer who currently is representing “four or five” capital murder defendants, said prosecutors only make plea recommendations after an extensive review of the evidence and consultation with the Capital Committee — and, except in rare cases where the death penalty is an option, those recommendations are never so onerous as life without parole.
“Who would sign up for that?” Newman said. “There’s no reason to accept it. The only incentive that any defendant has to take life without parole is if the alternative is the death penalty.”
In practice, Newman said, the blanket recommendation of life without parole is unlikely to derail any prosecutions — but it could “create a headache” for Teare’s incoming administration when the plea recommendations inevitably change.
“What (Ogg) has basically done is set an atmosphere in which she can express some level of mock outrage (about) any plea negotiations done during the Teare administration,” said Newman, a longtime critic of Ogg. “The fact that she did it as a blanket move shows you what her intent was — to set up the incoming administration to look soft on crime for (modifying) plea negotiations that she had already entered into.”
I don’t know what’s going on here, and I’ll leave the speculation to those closer to the situation. I have faith that Sean Teare can deal with this and avoid the messes that other recent DAs have found themselves in. I was bolstered in that opinion after listening to his recent interview on CityCast Houston – he really comes across well and has some clear ideas about what he wants to do. Give it a listen for yourself.