Tarrant County’s new DA stands before a mountain of work. How is he scaling the slope?
It’s funny how life ends up working out.
Republican Phil Sorrells started his career right here in Tarrant County after he graduated from Texas Tech’s law school. Tim Curry, who left a lasting impact in Tarrant County as its district attorney for nearly four decades, was the one who swore Sorrells in as an assistant district attorney 32 years ago.
Now, as Tarrant County’s newest DA, Sorrells is working to fill Curry’s old office where you can distantly see the site of the future Panther Island project and where, most of all, the sun doesn’t beat in as hard as it did in his old office a few floors below where he served 25 years as a judge in the county’s misdemeanor court.
Sorrells finds himself in an interesting position as the newest person to head up the county’s prosecutors. Its backlog now sits 32,154 cases long.
Sorrells said he is ready to get to work laying down the law, and he’s bringing in the experience to make it happen.
Addressing the backlog
Sorrells knows crime doesn’t wait, and there is something to be said about addressing it immediately.
With the backlog, Sorrells is most concerned about the time it is taking for both victims and those accused of crimes to see justice. He compares it to a child breaking a cookie jar and having to wait three years for a punishment — by the time those three years are up, the consequence isn’t quite so relevant.
“You want that consequence close in time, so it has meaning,” Sorrells explained. “And the victim realizes, well, there is justice in our world, because they saw it in a closer amount of time.”
Even with the amount of time it’s taken to course through that backlog, Sorrells believes the notion that justice will be done in Tarrant County is here to stay. He doesn’t believe all the cases in waiting need to be tried; 90%, he said, will be solved through plea negotiations. But there needs to be experience there to know what should happen with each case.
Tarrant County’s DA doesn’t necessarily have his hands in addressing the backlog. That responsibility ultimately presides with the judges, who each handle their own docket. Sorrells was heralded during his time in misdemeanor court as running the most efficient courtroom with the lowest backlog in the courthouse.
His secret? Making people work, having a plan and sticking to it.
“You provide the forum for the prosecutors and the defense to do their job,” Sorrells said. “And you have expectations and you know, lawyers will rise to those expectations. But if you give them low expectations, they’ll sink to that level too.”
Sorrells isn’t in charge of the judges, but he’s spoken to them.
Bringing in experience
Sorrells’ work to get ready to take over as DA began almost immediately after the November election, but didn’t come without hurdles.
At a county commissioners meeting Dec. 13, Sorrells sought approval to hire four new positions and reclassify a fifth. He said he wanted to hit the ground running, but the commissioners voted 3-2 to wait until the new county judge, Tim O’Hare, took office Jan. 1 before approving a major budget decision. Nonetheless, Sorrells was able to get the positions and reclassification approved Dec. 27.
Sorrells recognizes he’s inheriting an office with talent. But even though the talent is there, he said the experience isn’t up to par. Part of that, he believes, is a result of COVID-19 restrictions that led to a lack of experience in trials in a business where the courtroom is the real classroom.
The mentorship will come from the top down, he said.
“We’ve got to continually bring people along and their careers so that they’re ready to step up and that they’re going to be that big name lawyer,” Sorrells said.
One of the many new faces Sorrells brings with him to the district attorney’s office is Robb Catalano, who will become first assistant district attorney after serving 12 years in Tarrant County Criminal Court No. 3.
“The Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office has always been a special place to me,” Catalano said in a press release. “I’m truly thankful for my experience on the bench. However, the chance to work with this talented group of attorneys and staff is a once in a lifetime opportunity.”
And another? Terri Moore, who will make her return to the DA’s office as deputy chief. Moore, like Sorrells, started her career at the DA’s office in 1987. She climbed the ranks to deputy chief before leaving in 1997 to become a federal prosecutor and then start her own private practice.
Moore never thought she would come back to the DA’s office. But then she talked to Sorrells, who moved her with his sincerity and further sealed the deal with their similar views on criminal justice and what it means to do justice.
“It’s teaching young prosecutors how to see that justice is done,” Moore said. “You know, the Code of Criminal Procedure says it’s not your job just to convict, but to see that justice is done and what does that mean?”
Moore believes the DA’s office as it stands now is in need of more experience.
“Hopefully we can get in there and and make a big difference,” she said.
