ONCE MORE SLOWLY, HOW CAN THIS MAN WORK FOR THE BISD?

(Ed.'s Note: The less-than-stellar performance of Brownsville Independent School District General Counsel Baltazar Salazar during the last meeting of the board when he recommended that they not enter into a Public Private Partnership with a local university and Jacana Development Group LLC, reminded us of his questionable credentials to be a district lawyer in the first place. Below is his resume.)

By Juan Montoya

On January 15, 1983, Baltazar Salazar, then starting an optometry business in Brownsville, was arrested for issuing a check without funds. That case number was 83-CR-416-A.

Then, just a little after a year later, on April 26, 1984 he was again arrested for two counts of the same offense of theft by check. Those case numbers were 85-CR-450-A and 85-CR-23-A.

Evidence presented in a court hearing in the 107th District Court indicated he was given county jail and probation on two cases (83-CR-416-A and 85-CR-450-A).

On February 26, 1985, Salazar was found guilty of 85-CR-23-A, one of the April 26, 1984 cases. A trial court (107th District Court) found him guilty and he received a three year prison sentence probated to seven years. He appealed the judgment to the 13th Court of Appeals and the court affirmed the trial court's conviction on May 1986. (13-85-181-CR)

A Cameron County Asst. District Attorney said Salazar was given "county jail and probation" during a 2012 hearing on two of the cases (83-CR-416-A and 85-CR-450-A), but referred to certain "certified copies" of documents issued by the Cameron County District Clerk (Aurora de la Garza) purporting to show that the cases had been "set aside," but neither she nor Salazar presented such evidence to the court.

How these district clerk office "documents" came to be or how one could "set aside" convictions that had resulted in probation was not explained. Aside from the oral testimony in a Cameron County courtroom, they can't be found on the record.

Salazar left the optometrist trade a few years later and – despite the three felony convictions – was allowed to enter law school. On May 1994, he graduated from law school at Texas Southern University. He then plied his trade in Houston, occasionally taking cases in Cameron County and South Texas.

Fast forward to April 24, 2012.
On that day, Salazar filed a petition for expunction of the criminal cases in the 107th District Court where he had been tried, found guilty, and sentenced to probated sentences. (See graphic at right. Click to enlarge.)

Despite the fact that once a defendant serves community probation expunction is not statutorily permitted, the court bought his attorney's argument and granted the motion and on June 26, 2012 and ordered that all law enforcement agencies including the Brownsville Police Department, the Cameron County District Attorney's Office, the Cameron County District Clerk, and the Texas Dept. of Public Safety, among others, to seal all documents related to the arrests and convictions.

Less than six months later, on Dec. 20, 2012, attorneys for the DPS appealed Euresti's order granting the order of expunction to the 13th Court of Appeals and said Salazar had not presented evidence to satisfy the requirement that he did not receive community supervision and therefore could not have his record expunged. (See graphic at left. Click to enlarge.) They did not make a decision on the DPS' appeal until August 15, 2013.

But while awaiting the decision by the appeals court, Salazar heard from his friends in Brownsville that the Brownsville Independent School District might be looking for a school board attorney, and he applied and made his presentation April 1, 2013. Now, he knew he had three felony convictions, but claimed he had been "released from the charges" on his BISD application as he did to the 13th Court of Appeals. The pliant board of the BISD bought it. The Court of Appeals justices did not.

The next day, April 2, 2013, a majority of the BISD voted for Salazar's firm to be the BISD's board attorney at $20,000 a month ($240,000 a year). Later, after a three-year extension, that increased and today it stands at $288,000 a year.

But on August 15, 2013 the court of appeals reversed Euresti's order and denied Salazar's petition for expunction as to all three offenses. (See graphic at right. Click to enlarge.)

"We order all any documents surrendered to the trial court or to Salazar returned to the submitting agencies."

Even though the appeals court order was issued in August 2013, and dated Nov. 7, 2013 when it reached the trial court, it wasn't until November 25, 2014 – more than one year later – that Euresti dismissed Salazar's petition for expunction of his criminal records and sent his order to open the documents to De la Garza's office down the hallway. Why did it take Euresti more than a year to sign and expedite the order and implement the court of appeal's order to return the documents to public scrutiny?

It gets curiouser and curiouser.

If Euresti signed the dismissal order in 2014, why haven't the documents proving Salazar has three felony convictions been placed back on the public record? Did De la Garza sit on Euresti's dismissal order until she left at the end of 2014 and the new district clerk Eric Garza took office in January 2015?

When Garza was shown the Court of Appeals order reversing Euresti's granting Salazar's petition for expungment of his criminal record just yesterday, he immediately sought the documents and released them. The truth is now available for the public – and to the BISD board and Cameron County District Attorney – for them to accordingly follow their own laws and policies.

In the BISD's  "Employment Requirements and Restrictions: Criminal History and Credit Reports," it states that "No one convicted of a felony or and misdemeanor involving moral turpitude may be considered for employment in the district. Moral turpitude is an act of baseness, or depravity in the private or social duties outside the accepted standards of decency and that shocks the conscience of an ordinary person."

Among some of those crimes are included, of course, public lewdness, prostitution, theft or theft of service (in excess of $500 in value) and fraud.

A conviction is defined as "a finding of guilt or acceptance by the courts of a plea of guilty or nolo contendre."

The boards' personnel policy states that :At the Superintendent's discretion, the district shall not employ an applicant who:

1. Is a convicted felon...

But BISD Superintendent Esperanza Zendejas did not hire Salazar and the hiring of a board attorney is not left up to her discretion, and neither is it up to her to fire him or even to set his salary. That is the board's sole prerogative. Will it follow its own policy, or continue to implement that double standard in Baltazar's case?

https://law.justia.com/cases/texas/thirteenth-court-of-appeals/2013/13-12-00771-cv.html