Craig Watkins is the 2008 Texan of the Year

Friday, December 26, 2008

On the surface, the courtroom scene typified old-time Texas justice.

The accused killed his family, so he needs killing, the prosecution 
argued. Among onlookers who filled the wooden benches for closing 
arguments, there was little doubt how this story would end: with an 
execution. One of the bailiffs offered his own not-so-subtle take, 
donning a black tie emblazoned with a white syringe.

But at the prosecutors' table, Dallas County District Attorney Craig 
Watkins sat, eyes closed, rubbing his temples, gathering himself. 
Finally, he stood and, for the first time, delivered the words he had 
dreaded saying.

"Give him what he deserves: the death sentence," Mr. Watkins told 
jurors.

Here in the state that sanctions killing more often than any other, 
Craig Watkins is not just another cog in the machinery of death. The 
first-term Dallas County district attorney has quickly emerged as a 
transformational figure who has made a name not by securing 
convictions, but by clearing the way for them to be overturned.

Under his watch, the prison door has swung open again and again, as 
the wrongly convicted have walked out as free men. He is a prosecutor 
who has sought the death penalty because it is his professional 
responsibility but who is personally conflicted.

Mr. Watkins has trained a spotlight on the flaws in the system, and 
two years after becoming the state's first black district attorney, 
he is suddenly the new face of Texas jurisprudence.

For his efforts to reform an imperfect criminal justice system and 
for his willingness to stake out politically precarious territory 
somewhere between "hug a thug" and "convict at all costs," Mr. 
Watkins is the 2008 Dallas Morning News Texan of the Year.

Admittedly, this small-time defense lawyer-turned big-deal DA is a 
lucky guy. He swept into office on a wave of Republican malaise, 
arrived just as improved DNA technology was employed to overturn 
convictions, and found himself in one of the few places in the 
country where evidence was preserved for years after cases were closed.

"Life is all about timing," Mr. Watkins says. "I just happen to be a 
person with a progressive point of view who is garnering the rewards 
for this good timing."

Of course, the new DA in town has detractors, critics who want the 
county's top prosecutor to focus on convictions and leave it to 
defense attorneys to balance the scales of justice.

Many more observers have hailed his efforts to forge a new approach. 
He has been written about nationally with splashy headlines like "The 
Exonerator."

And while his timing was fortuitous, the 41-year-old Democrat is not 
simply a passive beneficiary or a one-note character. He is actively 
pursuing a range of reforms that would protect the wrongly accused 
and appropriately punish the guilty. Not only does he want to clear 
the innocent, but he also hopes to extend the statute of limitations 
in DNA cases to ensure that the right person does the time.

He has reinvented his office by creating a conviction integrity unit, 
an operation that has freed prisoners who were wrongly locked up for 
murder, robbery and rape. Not content to just notch wins in the 
courtroom, Mr. Watkins deserves credit for vigilantly pursuing 
justice – a distinction with an important difference.

Dallas County leads the country in DNA exonerations (19 and 
counting), and Mr. Watkins has seized upon the attendant acclaim, 
taking his fight for social justice to statewide and national stages. 
In his sudden fame, he sees an opportunity to change the way district 
attorneys do business.

Full of complexities

Mr. Watkins' philosophy – like the courtroom scene in the death 
penalty case – is more nuanced than first impressions would suggest.

That December day, when Mr. Watkins helped prosecute his first case 
as district attorney, encapsulated many of the complexities of his 
tenure.

The former defense lawyer didn't ease into the prosecutor's seat; he 
started big, with a high-profile trial. Ever sensitive to any 
suggestion that he's soft on crime, Mr. Watkins attached himself to a 
gruesome capital murder case, despite his misgivings about allowing a 
flawed system to mete out an irreversible punishment.

As the trial neared its end, word spread that Mr. Watkins would make 
the prosecution's final plea for death. Suddenly, the sparsely 
populated courtroom was standing room only.

Assistant District Attorney Andy Beach led off, describing the 
murders in grisly, bloody detail and asking the jury to ensure that 
defendant Robert Sparks would be strapped to a gurney in Huntsville, 
lethal drugs injected into his veins.

Finally, Mr. Watkins commanded the courtroom.

"Power is scary sometimes," he said. "I promised the citizens of 
Dallas County that I would only use it when it's absolutely necessary."

Mr. Watkins told jurors how much he valued human life and then, 
almost reluctantly, he asked them to choose death. They did.

The moment, like so much of Mr. Watkins' professional life these 
days, was well-documented. He's become a legal celeb, feted in the 
national media and trailed by a British film crew producing a 
documentary about his conviction integrity unit.

After wrapping his closing arguments, Mr. Watkins stole a moment away 
from the cameras in his office on the 11th floor of the criminal 
courthouse.

"You don't know how difficult that was," he says, staring out the 
window. "My religion tells me that goes against everything I've been 
taught."

Mr. Watkins' qualms, though, aren't tied only to his personal faith 
but also to his analysis of the system.

The argument against the death penalty "is not a moralistic one," 
says Mr. Watkins, who attends Friendship-West Baptist Church. "It's: 
Are we making mistakes? And we've made mistakes. We don't have a fail-
safe system."

He is working to identify weaknesses in judicial and police 
procedures both at the local and state levels. In June, Mr. Watkins 
was named to the newly created Texas Criminal Justice Integrity Unit, 
which was charged with examining wrongful convictions.

In Dallas County, he launched an effort this year to re-examine 
nearly 40 death penalty convictions. The deluge of DNA exonerations 
has rightly shaken Mr. Watkins' confidence in Texas' approach to 
criminal justice and has convinced him that the state is capable of a 
deadly error.

Watkins' detractors
As a broad concept, Mr. Watkins' goal of identifying the wrongfully 
convicted is nearly unassailable. His detractors often begin by 
saying, "I'm all for making sure that innocent people are not 
imprisoned, but ..."

The question has been raised whether such efforts should fall under 
the district attorney's purview.

"Pardons and parole boards should be concerned with getting people 
out of prison. Defense attorneys should, too," says John McAdams, an 
associate professor of political science at Marquette University. 
"Frankly, that's simply the wrong orientation for the DA. ... 
Prosecutors really ought to be about putting people they think are 
guilty in prison."

Other district attorneys have quietly offered similar thoughts, but 
few have gone public with their criticism of Mr. Watkins.

Dallas County Commissioner Ken Mayfield has called the district 
attorney's conviction integrity unit an unnecessary drain on taxpayer 
dollars. The county pays more than $400,000 annually to fund the 
salaries of the conviction integrity team. The Republican 
commissioner asserts that defense lawyers, along with the Innocence 
Project of Texas, could continue these efforts without benefit of 
public dollars.

Mr. Watkins is "costing the taxpayers $480,000 per year that's 
needless," Mr. Mayfield says.

That is money well spent, however, as long as Mr. Watkins strikes the 
delicate balance between pursuing convictions and getting them 
overturned. So far, he has. His conviction rates are comparable to 
his tough-on-crime predecessors.

Bristles at criticism
More troubling is Mr. Watkins' reflexively cynical response to 
anything less than high praise. He is quick to blame the media, the 
Republicans, the racists or anyone else who is handy for ginning up 
unfair criticism.

He struggles to understand why someone would point out his missteps 
and says he is always held to a higher standard than other elected 
officials.

Still, lapses in judgment have been evident during Mr. Watkins' short 
time in the limelight. For example, his office sought out corporate 
donors to provide door prizes for a party. The solicitation letters 
spelled out a quid pro quo: Donate a gift, get face time with the DA.

Mr. Watkins says he did nothing wrong and resents any such suggestion.

In some ways, the rookie still needs to grow into this job.

The pile of positive press Mr. Watkins has received dwarfs the 
smattering of critical reports. Yet even vaguely unfavorable coverage 
– figurative pin pricks – seem to hit him like a sucker punch to the 
gut.

He has been something of a media darling, attracting attention from 
the likes of 60 Minutes and The Wall Street Journal. After 
interviewing the Dallas County district attorney, Reason magazine 
posed the question, "Is this America's best prosecutor?"

Mr. Watkins must guard against believing his own hype.

"People like me usually don't get their due until after they're 
gone," he says.

'Destined for greatness'
Tanya Watkins says she and her husband both struggle at times with 
the scrutiny that accompanies this new life in the public eye.

"It's very difficult, because people say things as if they know who 
he is," Mrs. Watkins says. "They don't know his heart."

Mr. Watkins' wife is both his best advocate and his most trusted 
adviser, a sounding board who mulls over issues and ideas with him. 
Whether starting their own businesses or raising three young 
children, the couple tackles challenges as a team.

"I told him when we first met that he was destined for greatness," 
says Mrs. Watkins. "Craig always had a game plan."

She calls herself the general of his one-woman army. When he asked 
jurors to execute the man, she sat in the front row, silently 
offering her support.

"That was very emotional for him, emotional for me watching," Mrs. 
Watkins says. "He's still doing some soul searching about it."

When the district attorney walked in the door of their DeSoto home 
after that wrenching day, he was greeted by 3-year-old daughter Taryn 
and her trademark "daddy dance."

"She does that every day. No matter how bad it's been, that makes his 
day," Mrs. Watkins says.

Although Mr. Watkins' family and old friends can't point to a 
particular accomplishment that might have portended this path, no one 
seems surprised by his relatively sudden ascension.

"It was all part of the plan," his wife says. "It's only a surprise 
to people who don't know him and didn't see him coming."

In college, "he was a little more focused than some of us," says 
Michael Green, a Dallas doctor and Mr. Watkins' fraternity brother at 
Prairie View A&M University. "We were in college, and he was already 
getting ready for law school. He was just someone you respected."

Mr. Watkins, who graduated from Dallas' Carter High School, says that 
political office long has been his objective and that he knew early 
on that education was empowerment.

After his graduation from Texas Wesleyan School of Law, he and his 
wife opened a law practice and title company. In 2002, he took his 
first shot at the district attorney's office, losing to incumbent 
Bill Hill. Four years later, he upended veteran prosecutor Toby 
Shook, Mr. Hill's handpicked successor.

Those who came before him
Both Republicans take umbrage at the perception that Mr. Watkins is 
solely responsible for the exonerations in Dallas County. Mr. Shook 
points out that the majority of freed prisoners were cleared during 
Mr. Hill's tenure. And, he notes, previous administrations actually 
instructed the medical examiner's office to preserve the evidence 
that now is used for DNA testing.

Exonerations "would have continued under anyone who was elected," Mr. 
Shook says. "I give [Mr. Watkins] credit for giving it emphasis, but 
we were doing this."

Mr. Watkins disagrees. Too often in the past, he says, defendants 
were exonerated despite the district attorney's efforts – not because 
of them.

"They stood in the way," Mr. Watkins says of his predecessors. "We 
actively pursue it."

Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project in New York, says 
that Mr. Watkins' conviction integrity unit has been admired and 
emulated across the country.

"Sometimes district attorneys are reluctant to admit that a mistake 
was made," Mr. Scheck says. "What he proved is if the district 
attorney's office is not afraid to admit that a mistake was made and 
correct it, then juries will reward them for it. By doing justice, 
you establish credibility."

While Mr. Watkins and his allies acknowledge that much remains to be 
done, the district attorney in many ways has been the octane fueling 
recent progress. During his first year in office, he laid the 
groundwork for many of these efforts.

Now, as he approaches the halfway mark in his four-year term, Mr. 
Watkins has found his footing and is making important strides.

He campaigned on a promise to be "smart on crime," a simple slogan 
that is more complicated in the follow through. Over time, he has 
refined that vision, detailing a list of initiatives aimed at 
improving efficiency and restoring credibility. From opening the 
district attorney's case files to setting guidelines for eyewitness 
testimony, Mr. Watkins' ideas have begun to affect the way people 
view "Texas justice."

He is a compelling change agent. And political allies and rivals 
alike can't help musing about his next move. Mr. Watkins is pondering 
that as well while still emphasizing that he has work to do as 
district attorney.

"Any person in politics would be lying to you if they told you they 
don't have aspirations beyond where they are," he says. "Will I be 
afforded the opportunity to pursue loftier goals? I don't know. It's 
just too early."

Mr. Watkins still is a work in progress. But he has elevated the 
debate about the quality of justice and has altered our view of the 
job that district attorneys everywhere should do.

For these game-changing efforts, Craig Watkins is the 2008 Dallas 
Morning News Texan of the Year.

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