Matt Powell Lubbock Wont Run Again

Matt Powell sabbatum in his function in late September nether the framed passage from the code of criminal procedure at his desk that read, "Information technology shall be the chief duty of all prosecuting attorneys … not to convict, just to run into that justice is done."

Then he said something unexpected from a district chaser.

"I've dismissed a lot more cases than I've ever prosecuted," he said. "I've dismissed murder cases on the eve of trial, because I wasn't convinced in my heart of hearts across a reasonable doubt that somebody committed a crime. Thought they did, was pretty sure they did, merely wasn't convinced beyond a reasonable uncertainty that they did."

Ii days before, the Midland Independent School Commune announced that Powell, 55, was joining the commune equally its general counsel on Nov. v, ending a 26-year career every bit a prosecutor, 13 of which he served as Lubbock's Criminal District Attorney.

Powell, who was born in Amarillo and earned his undergraduate degrees in Political Scientific discipline and English language from Texas Tech. He started his legal career in 1992 subsequently graduating from the University of Tulsa College of Law.

Powell said he followed a winding path before he decided on a career in law.

"I didn't have a expert focus on what I wanted to do, I was as well busy messing upward," he said. "I wasn't one of those guys that grew up thinking, 'I'm going to police force school.' If they would pay me to chase and fish every twenty-four hours and I can brand a skillful living at that, that's what I'd practise."

At kickoff, he thought he would follow his male parent'southward footsteps and go into business and enrolled at Texas A&M as an accounting major. But he changed majors and went to Tech, where he met his married woman of 27 years, Christie.

Ultimately, his choices boiled down to being a teacher or a lawyer.

In law schoolhouse, he worked at the public defender'south part simply realized he was suited for prosecuting instead.

"Information technology was simply the ability to stand up and fight for somebody who didn't accept the power to practise that," he said.

Soon after he graduated, Powell joined the Montgomery Canton DA's office in 1993.

In 1995, Bill Sowder, who was the Lubbock County District Attorney at the time, hired him upon the recommendation of Powell's college roommate who Sowder hired as his juvenile principal. Powell moved upward the office from misdemeanor primary, to felony main until he became Sowder's starting time assistant district attorney.

"For many years, I was Beak'southward first assistant," he said. "And so nosotros worked extremely close. Outside of my dad, in that location'due south not been a man that has been more influential in my life."

In 2005, Powell took over as DA when Sowder was appointed to preside over the 99th District Court.

He said he learned from Sowder the guiding principle of doing the right thing for the right reasons. It has helped him wield the power his role holds over the lives of people.

"Just by proverb something or filing a complaint, I can publicly call yous a sexual practice offender, a child molester, a murderer, a burglar, a thief, a robber, whatever," he said. "And before we're going to label somebody one of those things, we want the evidence to be able to support information technology."

Powell said that guiding principle has helped him bear the responsibility of the office.

"I know there'southward been decisions I've made over the years that people have disagreed with merely I will tell yous, I've e'er tried to practice what I think is right," he said. "I've always tried to do what's in the best interest and guard the integrity of all the cases that nosotros deal with."

He said it's at present a lesson taught to each new prosecutor or staff fellow member who works at the office.

"He's been a mentor to me, he's been a trial partner - I've learned everything that I know pretty much nigh prosecution from him," Sunshine Stanek, who joined the DA's part out of law schoolhouse in 2000, said of Powell.

Stanek, who was sworn in as the Lubbock County Criminal District Attorney in November, said she hopes to carry the principles she learned from Sowder and Powell.

"My thoughts on justice are the same," she said.

Lubbock criminal defense chaser Mark Snodgrass said Powell led the DA'south office honorably.

"There'southward no malicious intent," he said. "I didn't call back Matt was setting out to cheat or annihilation like that. I think he tried to take his office operate with integrity. They did what they idea was right and didn't cutting corners to do and then. And that'south the kind of deal that comes from the top."

He was named prosecutor of the year in 2012 past the State Bar of Texas. A year earlier he was awarded the Harold Cotlle Justice Laurels by the Texas Clan Against Sexual Assaults for his piece of work for rape victims.

Amid the accomplishments of his tenure, Powell said he was proud of the strides his role made in advancing technology in the courtroom and in the constabulary.

His office was one of the first to indict a DNA profile from an unidentified suspect, in lodge to overcome the statute of limitations that would preclude his office from prosecuting the owner of the contour if he is identified later.

Even so, he said he was most proud of beingness able to shut the case of Joanna Rogers.

Rogers, sixteen, was reported missing in 2004. Two years later, Rosendo Rodriguez, who was charged with the rape and murder of Summer Baldwin, confessed to also killing Rogers and putting her body in a suitcase and disposing it in a Dumpster. Rodriguez's confession was part of a deal with the DA's office to allow Rodriguez to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence.

Rogers was found in the Lubbock landfill after a two-month search. Notwithstanding, Rodriguez went back on his deal and went to trial. He was bedevilled of majuscule murder for Baldwin's killing and was executed in March.

Powell credits his successes to the work of his staff and Lubbock's police force enforcement.

"Lubbock is tremendously blessed with very skillful police enforcement," he said.

Lubbock Law Chief Greg Stevens met Powell when he started at the DA's office. As a narcotics investigator at the time, Stevens didn't work as much with Powell.

However, well-nigh 10 years agone, Stevens was called as an expert witness in a trial that Powell, who had become the DA, was a office of.

"It was a tough example, and I was sort of salvaging the case," he said.

Stevens said he doesn't call up much near the details of the example. But he does remember that after his testimony, Powell handed him a note written on a torn legal pad sheet that read, "Man, y'all really tin can polish an onetime shoe. Good job."

The note is ane of the few mementos Stevens keeps in his part.

"You got people that y'all look up to and Matt's e'er been someone that I've looked up to in the criminal justice field," he said. "And and so when someone gives you a pat on the back if you will or when they sort of validate you, it means a lot."

He said he respects Powell'southward decisions even when it ways the cases his officers work on become rejected or dismissed.

"From my perspective, non only equally a constabulary officer but as an American citizen and as a citizen of Lubbock County, the prosecutor's task is non merely to throw people in jail and get huge sentences," he said "It'south to meet that justice is served, and sometimes that means non prosecuting a instance."

Powell said he hopes to be known as a prosecutor who put victims commencement.

That legacy is condom, co-ordinate to Pam Alexander, executive manager of the Lubbock Victims Help Services, who has worked with Powell for decades.

"He's a victim person all the fashion down the road," she said. "Had the victims in heed and in his center. I hateful, he fought for the victims and that's what made Matt such a great assistance DA and then a DA."

She said she has seen Powell encounter with victims and provide assurance every bit their case fabricated its way through the criminal justice system.

"Nosotros chosen it, 'working Matt'southward magic,'" she said. "Because he would only calm them down, he would reassure them that he was going to fight for him and and so justice is going to be served."

Throughout his career, Powell has tried cases that presented him with the worst of humanity.

He said his philosophy about prosecuting crimes has changed from when he started his career and went after every case with the same passion.

"I've mixed a lot more mercy with my justice," he said.

Instead, he said he saves his energy for serious offenders.

"I've gone later on them with as much zeal as I did when I was baby prosecutor, if not more," he said.

Over the course of his career, he's tried more than 300 cases and has never lost a felony case including seventy murders and 17 upper-case letter murders, according to the Lubbock County Commune Chaser'southward Office.

He'south sent ten men to decease row, he said. Though he believes the death sentence is deserved in some cases, information technology's not a penalisation he's every bit eager to seek as he did when he was younger..

"My desire would be that we never e'er have to do a death punishment instance again," he said. "But the reality is, just when I think I've seen as evil as capable of men in their eye, somebody jumps out and says, await at me."

He said his religion and his family take sustained him throughout his career.

He said his religion has guided him through the most difficult cases and has only strengthened through the years despite seeing the worst of humanity.

"I start every morning in this office praying for this function," he said. "My prayer's not 'Let'southward get convictions. My prayer's that we'll practise justice on every case and protect the people that are involved in this office. That's all it is. And so I don't know how you can do this task without it."

He said his wife, Christie, who he married in his second twelvemonth of law schoolhouse, has been his greatest supporter.

"She has been she is my best friend, and my number one confidant and she is the ane that keeps me apprehensive and she'southward the ane that anytime I take bad news or proficient news, she's the first i I desire to talk to," he said. "And she is, I couldn't have done annihilation that I've washed without her."

However, the years of dealing with the near heinous acts of men has taken its toll on him.

"I can in a blink pic scenes in my mind that I wish I could get rid of and I can't," he said.

He said he didn't want to leave Lubbock. Information technology's the metropolis in which he lived the longest. And there was no shortages of job opportunities in town, but none presented a challenge that appealed to him.

However, working for the schoolhouse district in his wife's hometown non only offers him a new claiming only allows him to practice what he likes to do best: assist people.

"We're shaping the future leaders of our part of the globe and if I tin help in that regard," he said. "And (criminal law is) all I've ever done, and then there'due south going to be a learning bend and some new challenges that people say, 'Well, that's going to be kind of scary.' Well that'due south the kind of stuff that excites me, because I like new challenges and everything else like that. I've got mixed feelings most it."

foyagard1947.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.lubbockonline.com/news/20181228/former-lubbock-da-powell-reflects-on-career-legacy-challenges-ahead