Serving in District Attorney’s offices large and small and having now worked a few years as First Assistant in the Milam County D.A.’s Office, people often ask me about what I do. There seems to be considerable confusion out there about what District Attorney’s Offices do, so I want to s tart o ff h ere b y t alking about that.
Texas takes prosecution seriously under our constitution and laws, and near the beginning of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure are these words: “It shall be the primary duty of all prosecuting attorneys, including any special prosecutors, not to convict, but to see that justice is done.”
In Milam County, our team is technically the District and County Attorney’s Office, which means we do a bit of everything. We prosecute felony crimes in District Court and misdemeanor cases in County Court and Justice of the Peace Court. We handle CPS cases involving abused juveniles, and on the other side of the legal coin, cases where juveniles have hurt people. We also advise Commissioners Court on legal issues. This means we are at work in District Court, County Court, J.P. Courts in our four county precincts and Commissioners’ Court.
While this may seem like a lot of ground to cover, it’s really just a sample of what we’re doing at the D.A.’s Office on a dayto- day basis. Many other things tie into different parts of what we handle and take care of.
I hope to write in a series of brief articles about what prosecutors do, and legal subjects that tend to be misunderstood. I thank
for providing space to discuss this, and if you have questions or there’s a criminal law topic you’d like covered, please email me at daoffice@milamcounty. net. While there are legal limits on what can be said regarding ongoing criminal cases, there are plenty of things in our criminal justice system to talk about, and I look forward to hearing from you.
PROSECUTOR’S CORNER
BRIAN PRICE Milam County D.A.
First Assistant
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