Latest DMN Editorial: Watkins's "Crumbling Credibility"


June 6, 2010


Editorial: All it took for DA to step aside was this guy?

Let us not judge Gale Corbett Hutchinson too harshly.

Yes, the 44-year-old Allen man has said in court documents that he suffers from mental illness, which is no laughing matter. And he ended last week in the Collin County jail on several felony charges, including making false statements for property credit, credit card abuse, theft and, in a delicious bit of irony, impersonating a lawyer.

Sure, it would be easy to dismiss Hutchison as a "witness," but give the man credit. He succeeded where the Texas attorney general, three Dallas County commissioners and just about anyone else with common sense could not.

By making wild, unsubstantiated claims against a former FBI agent, Hutchinson apparently persuaded District Attorney Craig Watkins to step aside and let someone else investigate allegations of criminal misconduct by two Dallas County constables.

Despite the district attorney's crumbling credibility on all things constable, this is what he would have us believe. Because Hutchinson supposedly alleged some sort of conspiracy that made Watkins a potential victim, now, at long last, the DA had found that elusive potential conflict of interest.

He could have recognized far more reputable potential conflicts months ago and recused his office from an investigation he never acknowledged. Had he done so, there probably would have been no Danny Defenbaugh civil investigation, at county commissioners' behest, which is where Hutchinson surfaced.

Watkins could have read the October 2009 letter his office wrote to the attorney general, after losing or burying the county auditor's February 2008 memo alerting prosecutors to criminal allegations against Constable Jaime Cortes. That letter correctly noted the DA's attorney-client relationship with Cortes and cited an ongoing criminal investigation or prosecution as reasons to bar Virginia Porter's memo from public view.

Or Watkins could have just listened to the attorney general's office, which reminded him twice that he had rightly stepped aside when Cortes' Precinct 5 predecessor, Mike Dupree, needed investigating.

Instead, Dallas County taxpayers have had to wait two years for Watkins to take the only reasonable action available. In the meantime, Cortes and Precinct 1 Constable Derick Evans ran for re-election, with voters still officially in the dark.

So now the task falls to former Democratic state legislator Ted Lyon as Watkins' chosen special prosecutor. Let's also not judge Lyon too harshly. Yes, he made his fortune as a personal injury lawyer and has contributed much of it to Democratic candidates, including Watkins. No, he offers no prosecutorial experience.

Perhaps he will learn as he goes. That's not unprecedented in Dallas County.