BROWNTOWN MUNICIPAL COURT INCUBATOR FOR JUDICIARY

By Juan Montoya
If you have ever had a traffic fine or got a ticket for some other ordinance violation, you probably had to go to the Brownsville Municipal Court to take care of it.

There, a lowly municipal judge or magistrate would run your case, assess whatever fine or community service and send you on your merry way if there was nothing else pending.
The judge was probably someone you knew around town and probably ran into them on the street or in local events and businesses.
The chief municipal judge for the past few years has been Ben Neece, who apart from being a lawyer, is also a musician of
some renown who has invested his time to making his and George Ramirez's Half Moon an anchor for live music after Mayor Tony Martinez single-handedly gutted the Market Square distrito de entretenimiento in his attempt to raise the snob appeal level of the area.
But the lowly traffic court on Levee has spawned its number of noted barristers who have gone on to fill the benches of the county, state and federal judiciary.
Arturo McDonald  was a municipal court judge and now is the judge of the Cameron County Court-at-Law No. 1.
Elia Cornejo-Lopez also served as a municipal judge and now Texas 404th District Judge.
And 445th State District Judge Jose Rolando Olvera was recently confirmed by the U.S Senate to replace U.S. District Judge Hilda Tagle at the federal courthouse down the block.
Before him, Ignacio Torteya, III was appointed by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas on January 2014 as United States Magistrate Judge.
And now that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has appointed municipal judge Rene de Coss to replace Olvera at the 445th, the is an opening which we hear is being actively sought by a gaggle of lawyers in town who want a crack at the opportunity ladder. Who will it be?
Choose wisely, said the knight to Indiana Jones.
Think about this. Before these worthies reached their well-deserved pinnacles, most of us knew them as Nacho and Rollie, Elia, Art and Rene.
Some of us still do.
And to think the municipal court over on Levee Street (and before that at the PD building) was the incubator for these legal eagles!