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  • The Texas Observer

    The Dissenter

    May 01, 2019 5 minutes
    Interviewed by Michael Barajas
    “We have all these laws out there and they sort of give us this illusion of justice, but in many cases, justice wasn’t really happening.”

    ELSA ALCALA BEGAN HER LEGAL CAREER IN THE HARRIS County DA’s office, joining a prosecutorial machine famous for cranking out death sentences. Three decades later, she’s a prominent critic of the death penalty.

    Alcala, a Republican, says serving as an appellate court judge opened her eyes to systemic inequities in the criminal justice system. During her seven years on the Court of Criminal Appeals, Texas’ highest criminal court, she became known for lengthy dissents that challenged other judges, particularly in high-stakes appeals from death row. In one 2016 dissent, she questioned whether the death penalty in Texas is

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