AFS Cinema
King Is 'Way off on This'
RECEIVED Mon., Dec. 16, 2013
Dear Editor,
Regarding “Point Austin: Lehmberg's Scarlet Letter,” [News, Dec. 13]: Michael King, you're way off on this. You name a list of elected officials with drinking problems and DWIs to show that Lehmberg was treated differently – yet not one of those was an elected law enforcement official. If constituents want to elect or keep legislators with drinking problems because they like his or her ideas, maybe that's their business. But when your sole function in our community is prosecuting our most violent crimes, you don't get to sit in jail for three weeks by your own doing and go back to work. You don't get to teach the public how not to cooperate with police officers and magistrate judges and go back to work. That is, unless you're a delusional alcoholic heading the Travis County District Attorney's office, apparently. Your failure to distinguish her case from the others on a law enforcement basis is intellectually dishonest.
Regarding “Point Austin: Lehmberg's Scarlet Letter,” [News, Dec. 13]: Michael King, you're way off on this. You name a list of elected officials with drinking problems and DWIs to show that Lehmberg was treated differently – yet not one of those was an elected law enforcement official. If constituents want to elect or keep legislators with drinking problems because they like his or her ideas, maybe that's their business. But when your sole function in our community is prosecuting our most violent crimes, you don't get to sit in jail for three weeks by your own doing and go back to work. You don't get to teach the public how not to cooperate with police officers and magistrate judges and go back to work. That is, unless you're a delusional alcoholic heading the Travis County District Attorney's office, apparently. Your failure to distinguish her case from the others on a law enforcement basis is intellectually dishonest.
Kerry O'Brien
[Editor's Note: Kerry O'Brien is the attorney who filed the original removal lawsuit against D.A. Lehmberg. It was dismissed and superseded by the similar suit filed by Travis County Attorney David Escamilla. See "What Happens Next?" News, May 3.]