South Texas College of Law Houston had the rare opportunity to host the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) for two oral arguments this week, and students and leaders from all three Houston law schools benefited from a variety of related enrichment opportunities.
South Texas Law professors Katherine Vukadin and D’Andra Shu coordinated five campus events related to the Texas CCA visit across two days, all celebrating criminal law.
“We partnered with the Criminal Justice Section of the State Bar of Texas and the CCA to bring these events to our students and to students from the other two law schools in Houston — Thurgood Marshall School of Law and University of Houston Law Center,” Vukadin said. “This was a powerful opportunity for law students to see the appeals court in action.”
When the Texas CCA — the state’s highest court for criminal cases — hosts live oral arguments on a law school campus, students gain a direct, real-world window into appellate advocacy and the judicial process. This week, students watched live appellate arguments instead of just reading printed case briefs or transcripts in a textbook.
Attendees also had the opportunity to see how appellate judges test legal theories by questioning attorneys directly and observing professional courtroom decorum, timing, and persuasive strategies.
During a case preview on Tuesday, criminal law experts discussed the two cases that would be argued the next day. The preview featured four panelists speaking to a large audience of primarily students: Comal County District Attorney Jennifer Tharp, Attorney Nelson Ebaugh, the Hon. Lisa Michalk of the 221st District Court of Montgomery County, and the Hon. Audrey Moorehead of the Dallas Criminal County Court at Law No. 3.
A special reception — the inaugural event of the Johnson Garcia Endowed Judicial Lecture Series — was held the night before the oral arguments featuring judges, alumni and other legal practitioners, professors, and students. The endowment was generously funded by Daniel Johnson ’04 and Juan Garcia ’04 — best friends since they were first-semester study partners at STCL Houston.
The lecture series will provide opportunities for students to have meaningful engagement with members of the judiciary in many different forms, from panel discussions to Q&As.
“For us, the judiciary plays a tremendously important role in our profession and from a societal standpoint,” Johnson said. “Our gift to support events related to the judiciary was from the heart to benefit students. We hope these types of events will inspire some of the law school’s best students to think, ‘I may want to do this someday.’”
Johnson noted, “Judges have influenced our lives, and they’ve been mentors to us. Our judges work very hard and are the cream of the crop of our profession. We’re so honored to have the esteemed members of the Court of Criminal Appeals on campus for what we plan to be the first of many judicial lecture series events.”
A question-and-answer lunch panel for students featured 22 judges, professors, and practitioners plus 60 students.
South Texas Law President and Dean Reynaldo “Rey” Anaya Valencia welcomed special guests to campus and thanked the CCA for traveling to hold arguments on campus and the Criminal Justice Section of the State Bar for its outstanding outreach to Houston’s law students.
He also thanked the other two Houston law school leaders — Acting Dean McKen Carrington from Thurgood Marshall School of Law and Dean Leonard Baynes from the University of Houston Law Center — for their partnership on these types of events.
Hundreds of students, faculty, staff, alumni, and others from the community attended the various events. The oral arguments, held in the Treece Courtroom, had packed houses, with overflow into another campus auditorium.
“Students don’t often get to watch the state’s highest criminal court work through hard questions in real time, in their own building, and then sit down to lunch with the judges and lawyers who do this work every day,” Shu said. “One student told us it was ‘the most enriching experience I have had during my time at STCL,’ and we heard similar comments again and again. For many of these students, this was perhaps the moment criminal law stopped being something they read about and became something they could see themselves doing.”
