District Judge, 457th Judicial District - No Recommendation
District Judge, 457th Judicial District
No Recommendation.
We suspect you have heard the phrases “the slow wheels of justice“, or “justice delayed is justice denied”. There is much truth to both phrases. One key objective of government should be to ensure that all citizens can get their fair day in court. “Fair” relates not just to “equal treatment under the law”. It relates also to timely/speedy trials. Citizens of Montgomery County have not been getting fair civil trials in recent years due to the large backlog of civil cases.
To remedy this delay/denial of civil justice situation, last year the state legislature created a new court specialized in civil law. The urgent task of whoever wins this race will be to competently, without further compromising each litigant’s right to justice, eliminate as much of the civil case backlog as quickly as possible, in part by speeding up the pace of case resolution. Resolving this delay/denial of justice to our fellow citizens demands a highly skilled, experienced civil litigator who has complete mastery of the complex rules and procedures which apply to civil law. It demands creativity; out-of-the-box approaches to improve the way cases are moved through the system.
Five very good candidates filed to run in the primary. The runoff election will be between Vince Santini and Eric Yollick.
Vince Santini was a star litigator in the Montgomery County District Attorney’s office, so has fantastic criminal law experience. He has been practicing insurance law for the last two years, which has given him some good exposure to the civil law. He is a brilliant person and in time would master the intricate civil law procedures and rules. Voters must decide if the crisis situation that gave rise to the creation of the 457th District Court demands a judge that already has such mastery.
Eric Yollick is a long time Montgomery County resident with 30 years of experience as a civil litigation attorney. He is Board Certified in Consumer and Commercial Law. Having participated in hundreds of civil jury trials during his career, he has mastered the civil rules and procedures and will be able to make timely decisions on the cases that come before him as judge. He has a solid plan to reduce the backlog and expedite ongoing trials, which should effectively address the justice delay/denied problem. Mr. Yollick holds strong, well-articulated conservative values and has been personally responsible for effectively shining light on fiscal accountability problems in local government. While there may be some who find Mr. Yollick’s approach to these issues distasteful, he has been remarkably successful as an activist where more conventional approaches have had made no impact.
The Texas Patriots PAC recommended Mr.Yollick in the primary election. We make no recommendation in the runoff election because, in our view, actions of Mr. Yollick since the primary election are inconsistent with Section 4 1A of the Judicial Code of Conduct. The key section of this code states “A judge shall conduct all of the judge's extra-judicial activities so that they do not: (1) cast reasonable doubt on the judge's capacity to act impartially as a judge.”