More on the Harris County judges

After losing his bench in a Democratic sweep, Harris County Juvenile Court Judge Glenn Devlin released nearly all of the youthful defendants that appeared in front him on Wednesday morning, simply asking the kids whether they planned to kill anyone before letting them go.

"He was releasing everybody," said public defender Steven Halpert, who watched the string of surprising releases. "Apparently he was saying that's what the voters wanted."

[...]

"He's not one of those that never releases a kid charged with an aggravated robbery," he said. "But nobody has seen this before."

Some of the children didn't have parents present in court Wednesday. Of the juveniles who appeared before the judge, Halpert said he only saw one detained.

All of the cases, he said, were reset to Jan. 4, the first Friday after Devlin's replacement takes the bench.

  Houston Chronicle

Wow. Good riddance to a spiteful dick sore loser.  I'm going to guess justice was never served under Judge Devlin in the first place.

"Judge Devlin appears to be abdicating the basic responsibility of any sitting juvenile judge," said Elizabeth Henneke of the Lone Star Justice Alliance, a group that works to get young people out of the justice system and into treatment programs.

She called Devlin's post-election actions "disappointing and shocking" and something she'd never seen in a Texas juvenile court.

[...]

"We oppose the wholesale release of violent offenders at any age," Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a statement later. "This could endanger the public."

[...]

The longtime Republican jurist — whose seat was among 59 swept by Democrats in Tuesday's election — is one of two juvenile court judges in Harris County whose track records favoring incarceration contributed heavily to doubling the number of kids Harris County sent to the Texas Juvenile Justice Department in recent years, even as those figures fell in the rest of the state.

A Houston Chronicle investigation last month found that Devlin and Judge John Phillips accounted for more than one-fifth of all children sent to the state's juvenile prisons last year. The two jurists not only sent more teens to juvenile prison, but they also sent them younger and for less-serious offenses than the county's third juvenile court, where Judge Mike Schneider presides.

But despite the differences in their courtroom practices, all three of the juvenile court judges — all Republicans — lost their benches to Democrats in Tuesday's election by at least 10-point spreads.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  It's even worse...