Jose Garza just won his Democratic Primary runoff election and will now face Republican Martin Harry in the general election November 3rd.
Martin Harry is a former judge advocate for the Navy and served as a staff attorney for the Social Security Administration before establishing his own law firm. Harry has run his private practice for 22 years.
Mr. Harry’s campaign site outlines his stance on cannabis, and some of it doesn’t make sense. Harry claims that as a DA that his job is part of the judicial branch. For federal U.S. attorneys, the position is explicitly part of the executive branch. The lines aren’t clear cut in other situations but one would easily say that a DA is part of the executive branch. His job is to bring forth cases of the state against defendants, on the position that they are in violation of the law. The court’s sole job is to determine whether or not contract or law has been broken.
This is problematic because Harry states on his campaign issues page,
“In Texas, district attorneys are part of the judicial branch of government and have no legislative authority to make or repeal drug laws. Yet, my opponents promise to refuse to prosecute persons who violate state and federal drug laws. Travis County residents should reject this proposed usurpation of power by law enforcement officials.“
The conflict is that he accuses DA of legislating from the bench, while also stating that DA’s are part of law enforcement power (executive branch).
Harry continues, “Aside from being unconstitutional and unethical, there is evidence that de facto legalization of marijuana without regulation is dangerous to public health and safety.“
He actually goes as far as to state that legalizing marijuana with anything outside of legislature is unconstitutional, despite having the knowledge that jury nullification would do the exact same thing. And that jury nullification is perfectly constitutional. Add to the fact that every DA in every county in this nation has to prioritize which cases they will take and which ones they will drop, even if they really think the accused is guilty. Harry says that he won’t be that way as he is one “who will faithfully enforce the law without bias and prejudice.”
Harry states in the section that the legalization in Washington has caused the state’s aggravated-assault rate to rise seventeen percent. That is has caused the murder rate to rise forty-four percent. He backs this with an article that doesn’t actually link these items and uses a line of “we don’t know” as equating to wrong.
The veteran cannabis activists and lobbyists have seen these tactics over and over. The lack of American studies which were strictly prohibited until a few studies were allowed to begin recently, is used as evidence against legalization. Even if one doesn’t look at the topic from that angle, there are countless other states that have enacted marijuana legalization in some form, and these issues were not seen at all.
Harry has a complicated stance on this and will be facing an uphill battle as Travis county is primarily a Democrat county. The general election will be Nov 3rd.