Houston’s Biggest Loser
Ogg Lost More Trials Than She Won Over A One-Month Period This Summer
July 4th weekend evokes memories of families together, hamburgers on the grill, and, of course, fireworks. But for one 11-year-old Harris County girl, the holiday will forever evoke more somber memories of being a victim of gun violence.
On July 4, 2020, a scorned lover fired twelve rounds from a 9mm handgun into a group of people standing in front of an apartment complex. The shooter missed the ex, but the hailstorm of bullets struck two vehicles and shattered the bones in the young girl’s leg.
The Houston Police Department arrested the shooter, documented corroborating statements from two separate witnesses at that scene, and referred the case to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office. Sounds like a slam-dunk for the prosecution at trial, right? But, in a situation that only Kim Ogg’s office could botch, the case ended with a not guilty verdict.
This case is not an outlier. Drawing on public records from Harris County’s court system, Houston Watch analyzed all of the cases that the Harris County District Attorney’s office brought to trial between July 22 and August 21, 2022. Ogg’s office obtained guilty verdicts in only 14 of 34 cases, or 40% of trials, during that period. Two additional cases resulted in hung juries. And Ogg’s office lost 18 cases during this period, meaning the case ended with either a not guilty verdict or a dismissal during trial.
A robber using a gun during the course of a robbery. A man who left the scene of a fatal car accident without rendering aid. A domestic abuse case involving a serious choking injury. A DUI case where the driver passed out behind the wheel of his car, blew a breathalyzer reading above the legal limit, and then admitted to having consumed “10-12” drinks. These are just a few of the serious cases that Ogg’s office recently lost at trial. The upshot is that if you’re a criminal in Harris County, you can rest easy knowing that you have a better chance at escaping justice than losing a coin flip.
What’s going on here? A report from an independent consulting firm called PFM, which found that many Harris County prosecutors report being “overwhelmed, unprepared, and emotionally exhausted” under Ogg’s leadership, helps to shed some light on why the office botches so many cases at trial.
The report found that certain divisions in the office had “inexperienced prosecutors [who] lack the knowledge and insight that comes from prosecuting cases.” Compounding the problem, Ogg employs an “inherently inefficient” process where trial attorneys endure “frequent reassignment” off of cases and say “they do not feel responsible for working up the case, tracking down discovery, and ensuring that it moves forward.” The report also noted that prosecutors are now “promoted in the office after only two or three jury trials,” whereas, under past leadership, prosecutors may have “brought cases before a jury 20 or more times before getting a promotion.” This has left otherwise “well-qualified” attorneys feeling unprepared to lead and supervise other lawyers in the office. What’s worse is that division chiefs inside the office were skeptical that more robust training would be effective because, under Ogg’s leadership, so many “attorneys burn out quickly and resign.”
A failure of leadership at Netflix means that fewer people will be streaming Stranger Things this weekend or some douche-bag in accounting will be forced to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch instead of sushi. But failures of leadership in the Harris County District Attorney’s office under Kim Ogg makes people less safe. When prosecutors lack experience, training, and supervision, it translates into the kind of failures that make the difference between winning and losing a case at trial.
Take, for example, a recent domestic violence prosecution that Ogg’s office lost. A father elbowed his daughter in the face so hard that she started bleeding from her mouth, and then pushed her to the ground, causing her to black out. If this sounds like an open-and-shut case to you, you’d be right—as long as the prosecutor remembered to get a copy of the 911 recording and the victim’s medical records from her hospital visit. Unfortunately, the prosecutor in this domestic abuse case did neither of those things successfully.
It’s hard to expect people to feel safe living in a community where their elected prosecutor loses more than she wins at trial. But it’s terrifying knowing that the main reason why prosecutors in Harris County keep losing is because of basic leadership failures around staffing, training, and supervision. The better news is that all of these things could be fixed. The PFM report recommended that Ogg’s prosecutors receive rudimentary training around things like “trial preparation”, “rules of evidence”, “time management” and “conducting effective meetings”. If this seems remedial, it is, but so is getting the recording of a 911 call to use at a domestic violence trial.
Though progress is technically possible, it requires discipline and commitment to get the job done. But instead, Ogg “went to war” with Democratic “party leaders”, globe-trotted to Dubai, and picked out party favors for the birthday bash that she’s throwing herself next month. Her inattention means that prosecutors will continue to lose a stunning number of cases at trial and Harris County residents will continue to suffer the consequences.