The iconic former Travis County District Attorney has passed away.
Ronnie Earle
Ronnie Earle, who served as Travis County district attorney for more than 30 years and was best known for prosecuting some of Texas’ top politicians and for championing the community justice system, died Sunday after a long illness. He was 78.
“He was a great guy,” said friend and former Austin Mayor Bruce Todd. “He always wanted to get things right and he had a good sense of what was right for community. That was what he always wanted to be the goal and objective.”
Todd said Earle’s health has been declining for some time.
Through the county’s Public Integrity Unit, which he founded, Earle prosecuted some of the state’s top politicians — including then-Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox, then-U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and then-U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay — with mixed success.
A jury acquitted Mattox and the case against Hutchison became a high-profile failure when charges were dismissed. DeLay was convicted of a money laundering charge, but that conviction was later overturned by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
But closest to Earle’s heart were his efforts at the forefront of community justice, a catchall name for programs that had caught on in prosecutors’ offices nationwide that aim to attack crime by, in his words, “engaging the community in its own protection.”
Earle established programs for crime prevention, alternative sentencing and the reintegration of former offenders into society. He also brought officials from a range of fields together.
He also ran for Lt. Governor in 2010 but lost in the primary. The late and lamented Public Integrity Unit was a weird way of prosecuting crimes committed by state officials, but it worked pretty well, and we have seen quite clearly since the Republicans killed it off that we didn’t have any better alternatives at hand. If the PIU were still a thing, we would get some kind of resolution to the Ken Paxton saga, not this ridiculously drawn-out process that has been at the mercy of Paxton’s cronies in Collin County and may yet end up in a forfeit. Whatever you think of the case against him, that ain’t no way to do justice. Ronnie Earle would have handled it better. Rest in peace, sir.