THREE BROWNSVILLE JPS HANDLE MOST CASES IN COUNTY

By Juan Montoya
The Cameron County annual report on the performance of the Justice of the Peace courts for 2018 shows that the commissioners' decision to even out the staff in the Brownsville courts was well justified.

During this year's budget deliberations, commissioners voted to shift one clerk from the JP 2-1 office (Salazar) to JP 2-3 (Maria Ester Sorola) citing the workload and cases processed through those offices. That made the number of staff at the three Brownsville JP offices the same.

Records from the JPs office indicate that in 2018, there was a 103 percent increase in fines collected in that office. In contrast, the JP 2-1 office (Linda Salazar) had a 1 percent increase.

From the outset, it should be noted that the courts have had a steady backlog of cases dating back at least a decade or more. And if you will notice, the bulk of the JP filings are with the three JPs in Brownsville.

Like JP 2-2 Johnathan Gracia, many of the JPs have urged the Cameron County District Attorney's Office to dismiss those that date back to the 1990s and early 2000s because of the difficulty in prosecuting cases that stretched back 10 to 20 years. Instead, they have relied on mailing out notices of possible prosecution in hopes of nudging defendants into comply with the fines.

Still, as in JP 2-2 Gracia's case, the backload of cases left over from the late Tony Torres and then his successor Erin Garcia leave 13,215 cases remaining open.

On the other hand, at JP 2-1 Salazar's office, 25,658 cases remain open even though she has been at that post more than three terms (12 years.) Only JP 1 Benny Ochoa at Port Isabel has more, 31,599.

Some of these numbers are skewed, such as JP 5-3 Mike Trejo, who handles the fines and citations from the Los Indios Bridge, which are issued by the Texas Department of Public Safety and Sheriff Dept. fines on 18-wheeler trailers traveling from Mexico into the U.S. Those fines can total into the thousands and throw off any apples-to-apples comparisons. He collected the most of any JP with $1.47 million. Being the only JP to handle those fines skewer his totals.

But looking at the Brownsville JPs as to criminal cases filed and fines collected for 2018, it is apparent that JP 2-3 Sorola and her staff have been very busy and justified the moving of  a clerk from Salazar's office to hers. Sorola just got reelected to a second term in November.

In 2018, she collected $1.08 million in fines compared to $960,530 by Salazar and $916,370 by Gracia.

But by far the biggest percentage increase in fines collected by all the JPs in the county from 2017 was 103 percent in Sorola's office compared to a 1 percent increase at Salazar's and 16 percent in Gracia's.

rejo had a 46 percent increase followed by Sally Gonzalez in JP 5-1 with 32 percent.

She also has the fewest cases remaining open of all the JPs in the county with 9,998.

Law enforcement filed 10,466 cases in her court, almost 3,000 more than in Salazar's court and Gracia's. Entities like DPS and the sheriff's department can choose in which court they file, indicating a preference of the JP 2-3 court. Only they know why they choose to file there.