Ronnie Earle

Ronnie Earle was one of a kind. Sometimes larger than life, he was a legendary Texas leader, a man of conviction and determination. His remarkable, enthusiastic and unswerving pursuit of equal justice under the rule of law touched countless lives and left its mark on the world.

He was an Eagle Scout and lifeguard. At 26 he brought a deep love of fairness to the bench as the youngest person ever appointed municipal judge in Austin. He became Chief Counsel to the Texas Judicial Commission and then served for three years in the Texas House of Representatives.

Best known for his 32 years as Travis County District Attorney, Ronnie was beloved here. He earned countless awards and became nationally known for the example he set for careful and thoughtful prosecutorial ethics and his many open-minded, creative and highly successful innovations in what he referred to as engaging the community in its own protection.

Colorful, courageous and compassionate, Ronnie spoke his mind and thoroughly enjoyed life and people. His legendary laughter was heard often and will be sorely missed. Guided by his personal political motto, “Today is a good day to die,” he was neither deterred nor distracted by controversy or criticism. He regarded high-profile, high- publicity cases as the work he had to do in order to do what he loved most — working with people of all walks and stripes to strengthen community.

When he first ran for the office of district attorney, he promised “a virgin mind and a keen sense of justice.” In later years Ronnie told Travis County voters that he no longer had a virgin mind but could still promise a keen sense of justice. Throughout his tenure he carried on a never-ending discussion with the community about how best to promote public safety while seeing that justice is done.

When he retired Ronnie said that what he was proudest of was making the community stronger. The Ronald D. Earle Building at 415 West 11th Street in Austin was dedicated in 2018 in his honor and is now home to the Travis County District Attorney’s Office. This community was always good to Ronnie. That went both ways.

Ronnie was born Ronald Dale Earle in Fort Worth, Texas in 1942 to Charles C. Earle and Lowleta Muse Earle. After a long illness, he died peacefully on April 5, 2020 at the age of 78. We wish to express our deepest gratitude to his extremely fine caregivers David Kagunda, Bob Davis and Yolanda Anthony. Ronnie is survived by a large extended family, his sister Donna Crain, his children Elisabeth, Jason and Nikki, three grandchildren, and his wife Twila Hugley Earle.

A memorial service will be held when public gatherings may again be enjoyed. In the meantime, donations are encouraged to organizations assisting those who are suffering from loss of heath or work in these times.

RONNIE EARLE'S BIOGRAPHY

Ronald Dale Earle was born in Fort Worth, Texas in 1942. He was raised on a nearby ranch begun by his great-grandfather just after the Civil War, on which his father and grandfather were born and raised. His father spent 40 years as a union member working for General Dynamics.

Earle’s experiences growing up in a large extended family shaped much of his thinking about the role of family and community in influencing character and behavior. His early years formed the basis for the later work he termed community justice.

EARLY DAYS IN AUSTIN

In 1960 Earle came to Austin to enroll in the University of Texas, earning a B.A. in government and graduating from the UT School of Law. He gained his first experience with the workings of state government as a state budget examiner for then-Texas Governor John Connally. In his personal time he volunteered to lead Austin’s first effort to pass a fair-housing ordinance to end housing discrimination on the basis of race.

IN THE JUDICIARY

At the age of 26 he became the youngest person ever appointed to the bench in Austin. As a municipal judge he became popularly known and would thereafter run and serve as “Ronnie Earle.” Foreshadowing his career-long commitment to “doing the right thing” regardless of political risk, he drew his first controversial statewide press coverage and was almost fired by the city council for including remarks in a speech that “marijuana is not a narcotic,” a scientific fact.

In 1972 Earle was named Chief Counsel of the Texas Judicial Council, where he led reform efforts to make the Texas court system easier for citizens to access and understand. Within a year he decided to run his first race for public office in an effort to enact those reforms. Earle entered private law practice and won election to represent Travis County in the Texas House of Representatives in 1973.

IN THE LEGISLATURE

At the Capitol, he earned a reputation as a leading advocate for judicial reform, prison reform and public employee rights. As a member of the Austin-Travis County Transportation Study Committee, Earle promoted more community and neighborhood participation in partnership with better government agency collaborations in the planning process. This early work in transportation provided an important model later for his major innovations in community justice planning.

Following the legislature’s reduction of penalties for possession of small amounts of marijuana, Earle sought and received appointment by then-Governor Dolph Briscoe to lead a project to secure the release of persons imprisoned under the previous law and help them transition back into community life. During his term in the House, Earle also drew national press controversy by being the first elected official in the country to call for the impeachment of then-President Richard M. Nixon following the firing of U.S. Attorney General Archibald Cox in the infamous “Saturday Night Massacre.”

AS TRAVIS COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY

By 1976, Earle was so drawn by the legal duty of district attorneys in Texas “not to convict but to see that justice is done” that he became a surprise late entry into an already hotly-contested race for Travis County District Attorney. Having no experience as a prosecutor, he promised to bring to the job “a virgin mind and a keen sense of justice.” Earle won the support of Travis County voters and began his first term as DA in 1977. His duties included supervising 9 assistant DA’s. Staff turnover rates were typically high as in other DA offices, with positions seen mainly as stepping stones for other opportunities.

In the first year of his first term as DA, Earle faced the challenge of prosecuting Frank Smith, the ex-convict head of a bail bond business and an expanding criminal enterprise. Working with the Legislature, Earle secured higher legal standards for bail bond businesses in Texas to stop the proliferation of armies of criminals subject to the orders of bondsmen who could withdraw bail arbitrarily. With the security assistance of the Texas Rangers, Smith was convicted of masterminding an aggravated robbery attempt and sentenced to life in prison.

Travis County had no other major organized crime figures during the rest of Earle’s tenure.

Earle served for twelve years as Chair of the Board of Governors of the Greater Austin Area Organized Crime Control Unit. He also later created a Special Crimes Unit in the DA’s office to investigate and prosecute complex economic, white-collar and violent crimes.

In his early years as DA, Earle focused on fairness and “tough prosecution.” He worked to establish an office culture that would support equality under the law and seeking justice rather than simply convictions, which was not then the stereotypical atmosphere of DA’s offices. Office turnover rates dropped and continued to decline as staff at all levels became increasingly attracted to a shared sense of duty “to see that justice is done.”

Assistant DA’s adjusted to defying conventional prosecutorial wisdom in matters such as jury selection, where Earle insisted on choosing representative cross-sections of Travis County citizens as much as possible and leading his staff in walk-outs at conferences when prosecutors from other jurisdictions advocated striking jurors for reasons such as race, gender, income or other factors he considered unjust. Travis County juries proved his trust in them well placed. Conviction rates were high. Many prosecutors from Earle’s office went on to serve as judges, magistrates, prosecutors in U.S. Attorneys offices, elected officials or entered private practice. Assistant DA positions were increasing sought-after.

Public Integrity

Because the Texas Constitution places jurisdiction for prosecuting crime where it occurs, the district attorney in Travis County is responsible for prosecuting crimes involving state government or the state treasury, located in Austin. Prosecutions of public corruption at all levels for both major and minor violations of law were plentiful. Most -- not all -- were successful, and some drew abundant criticism and controversial press. To deal with the volume of cases, Earle created within his office the nation’s first Public Integrity Unit.

Public servants ranging from state and county employees to elected county officials, Texas House and Senate members, statewide elected officials and others were among those investigated by the Public Integrity Unit. Some were indicted. Some were not. Most were convicted and some were not. Some of these cases drew intense media coverage and mixed reactions, but Travis County voters kept re-electing Earle, believing that regardless of political risk he did what he truly thought was “the right thing to do” to seek justice.

While investigating Texas House Speaker Gib Lewis for failing to disclose substantial sources of income in a report required by law, Earle discovered in his own desk drawer a forgotten and overdue report of his own income, which was his salary. Since he had not filed the report on time, he set a national precedent by charging himself for that offense, pleading guilty and paying the maximum penalty, a fine. Speaker Lewis later pled guilty and resigned from public office to become a lobbyist.

Although then-Comptroller Bob Bullock fought a bitter press battle over the investigation by the Public Integrity Unit of his office, which did not result in an indictment, in later years Earle and Bullock partnered to secure state funding for the Unit. Because the Unit brought millions of dollars into the state treasury in fines and restitution for offenses such as state cigarette sales tax

or motor fuel tax evasion and Medicaid fraud, Bullock pushed through the Legislature expansion of the Unit’s duties to include statewide insurance fraud cases.

For Earle personally, the biggest problem about investigating or prosecuting high-profile public integrity cases was not the controversy and political risk that accompanied them but the time they took away from his efforts in what he termed “Community Justice.”

Community Justice

During the 1980’s, crime rates kept rising in Austin and across the country. Earle looked hard for hope since even the best conviction rates were not stemming the rising tide of crime. He learned from his rural childhood that “if you want clean water downstream, keep the cattle out of the creek upstream.” Looking for ways to address causes of crime, he focused on child abuse because such a high percentage of prison inmates were abused as children and became criminally abusive as juveniles and adults. Social service agencies and police tended to blame each other for children who fell through the cracks. Child abuse cases were difficult to win because children had difficulty testifying on their own behalf.

Anguish over the tragic death of Austin toddler Christopher Wohlers, who had been the subject of repeated concerned citizen reports, prompted Earle to aggressively lead the formation of the Child Protection Team. He brought social workers, police and prosecutors into one office to work together on each case. He recruited volunteers and led fundraising to create a Children’s Advocacy Center modeled on the first one in Huntsville, Alabama. At the Center, abused children were interviewed once in a child-friendly environment instead of repeatedly by different agencies in office settings. Better support for child victims led to more convictions. Earle helped start the Child Fatality Review Team, examining the cause of every child death in the county to prevent future tragedies.

The success of these collaborations inspired more. Earle supported SafePlace to help battered women escape domestic violence and protect their children. In the DA’s office he created the Family Justice Division so that different types of cases arising from a family’s problems, whether they involved domestic violence and child abuse, substance abuse or juvenile delinquency, could be handled in a coordinated way for earlier intervention. His wife, Twila Hugley Earle, chaired a committee that established the Family Development Center to provide counseling, treatment and corrections resources for families in which incest had occurred. After three successful years, the Center became adjunct to the DA’s office and then was adopted as a model program by Parents Anonymous.

The effectiveness of providing support for child abuse victims encouraged Earle to offer more support to other victims as well. He established the first Victim/Witness Assistance Division in Texas. Crime victims groups became important partners in the justice process.

Earle expanded his efforts, creating innovative partnerships with neighborhoods, community groups, businesses and government to improve public safety. He established a host of innovations including Neighborhood Conference Committees to allow citizens to participate in sentencing and supervision of youth. Assistant DA’s were assigned to specific areas as the first Neighborhood DA’s, providing assistance to troubled neighborhoods to help solve crime problems. More areas requested neighborhood DA’s as they proved successful. The first Downtown DA was assigned to work with downtown businesses and residents to address crime problems in the downtown area.

Earle invited neighborhood residents to join in creating sentencing innovations for chronic problems such as gang activity and recurring corner drug trafficking after police drug sweeps. Ideas often led to conversations between neighborhood residents and offenders so that both could

be heard under the supervision of assistant DA’s. Relationships with offenders to anchor personal accountability were formed and behaviors improved.

Earle described community justice as “an effort to reweave the fabric of community by forging a partnership between local governmental entities, the private sector, and community groups to facilitate the performance by private citizens of the functions that were once performed by the extended family, neighborhood and school.” He made speeches about the importance of this “ethics infrastructure” in shaping values and behavior.

As interest in them increased, community justice initiatives in Austin blossomed. The Absent Student Assistance Program was developed working with schools to prosecute truant juveniles and parents and facilitate their participation in education. The Auto Theft Prevention Initiative more closely coordinated police work and prosecution.

Sentencing circles allowed victims, offenders, their families, police, business owners and other citizens affected by specific crimes to discuss concerns, impacts of the crime and solutions, often producing unanimous recommendations for sentencing. The rules for sentencing circles require complete consensus of all involved, an outcome that usually seemed impossible given their diverse membership but as the circle did its work, unanimous recommendations were achieved more often than not.

Circles sometimes followed up with offenders to help influence behavior and lifestyle changes. Later the Re-Entry Roundtable found ways to help offenders released from prison integrate into community life. The list of innovations kept growing.

Most importantly, Earle created and chaired for many years the Travis County Community Justice Council to bring together elected and appointed officials from a wide range of areas. Not only law enforcement but also local officeholders, leaders in education, corrections, employment, mental health, substance abuse, and other areas met with civic organizations, businesses and citizens to explore and identify criminal justice needs. They created short and long term plans, priorities and action committees to implement constructive solutions instead of what Earle called “throwing failures over walls of blame.”

The Travis County Community Justice Council met monthly and was so successful that Earle wrote Community Justice Assistance provisions for inclusion in the 1989 Criminal Justice and Corrections Reform Act that made the most sweeping reforms to criminal justice in Texas in 50 years. The heart of the reforms were the Community Justice planning provisions based on the conceptual model he developed while working with transportation planning during his term in the Texas House of Representatives.

Earle argued that in addition to its other benefits, community justice served taxpayers by producing a “2-for-1” multiplier effect: “Any dollar spent on corrections in a way that strengthens the fabric of community is a dollar also spent on prevention.” The legislature adopted his provisions into the Reform Act almost unchanged and provided funding for community justice initiatives across the state. Various other communities in Texas began planning and creating community action committees based on their justice needs and priorities.

Despite the rapid growth of the Austin area, the drop in its crime rate was gradual but dramatic. Earle attributed this success to Travis County citizens’ extensive efforts and participation in community justice collaborations. While crime rates around the country eventually began to decrease, during Earle’s tenure violent crime dropped up to three times faster than in other large metropolitan areas and at lower cost to Travis County taxpayers. Austin became one of the nation’s safest cities; the murder rate fell almost 50% in 17 years.

Earle believed that the way prisons were being used was too close to essentially turning them into hothouses for growing crime. In the 1990’s Travis County proposed to the Legislature a State Jail in order to allow only the offenders from Travis County who were sentenced to prison with no possibility of return to be placed in the state prison system. Believing that efforts here would work better to prepare offenders to re-enter the community, Travis County’s sought to secede from participation in the state prison system under those terms.

In a coordinated effort led by Earle, Travis County citizens committed more than 3,000 volunteer service hours in advance to make the State Jail program a success. The Legislature did not approve the proposal. A State Jail system was created under a different conceptual basis. Travis County continued to expand its Community Justice efforts anyway. By the end of his tenure, Earle was credited with the creation and leadership of a major metropolitan collaborative community-based system of justice.

Death Penalty Policy

Earle did not favor abolishing the death penalty for a number of reasons, including the inexplicable release of convicted multiple murderer Kenneth Allen McDuff and his subsequent murder of Colleen Reed in Austin. In addition to earning a national reputation for integrity and ethics in prosecution, Earle achieved prominence in the national debate on the death penalty for his serious and thoughtful attitude of reason and restraint.

He viewed the topic as one that would be dangerous to consider in oversimplified terms, and tolerated no glib remarks concerning its use. Earle established the Death Penalty Review Committee of assistant DA’s who volunteered to help make recommendations on a case-by-case basis about whether to seek the death penalty from a Travis County jury.

Final decisions about asking a jury to consider imposing a death penalty were always made by Earle and were personally excruciating to him each time. He also had deep concerns about total isolation in supermax prisons of inmates deemed too dangerous for human contact.

DNA Evidence Exonerations

A defendant convicted by Earle’s office was exonerated long after his trial by advances in DNA science. Earle set the tone for DA’s across the country by ordering an exhaustive DNA evidence review of all cases tried by his office in which advances in DNA science might be used to confirm the conviction or exonerate the defendant, to determine whether a mistake had been made in any other case. The grief of such an error lay heavily on him.

Drug Policy Recommendations

Earle called in speeches and at conferences for a complete re-examination of drug laws.

Teaching and Spreading the Word

Earle became particularly well known nationally for his community justice work. He and Twila traveled extensively to speak and consult together and separately in other states on community justice, community building and leadership.

They presented concepts in various divisions of the U.S. Department of Justice under then- Attorney General and former Florida district attorney Janet Reno, who favored community justice ideas and practices and sought to spread them across the country. Twila also spoke widely on criminal justice and application of the principles of chaos theory and self-organization in human systems, consulting for twelve years in the Executive Excellence Program of the National Institute of Corrections.

They both participated in a White House Conference on Safety in Public Spaces, lectured at various universities and graduate schools, and together taught an undergraduate honors course in

Plan II at the University of Texas at Austin called “Reweaving the Fabric of Community: The Theory and Practice of Community Building.” Their students formed a campus organization, The Good Society, to carry forward ideas from the class.

Re-Election Campaigning

After first winning election in 1977, Earle served as Travis County District Attorney for twenty years without opposition. Controversial prosecutions of public corruption drew opponents in 1996 and 2000. Earle told voters he no longer had a virgin mind but could still promise a keen sense of justice. He ran on a promise of tough prosecution and bringing people together for smart prevention against an opponent who argued that tough prosecution should be a DA’s only concern. Travis County agreed with Earle’s approach. He won handily both times, and then served unopposed until his retirement at the end of 2008.

Earle was the target of relentless barrages of negative television ads during his re-election campaigns. The ads against Earle were generally seen at the time as setting a new low for attack ads. He also became the only prosecutor ever to be attacked in television ads not during a campaign but simply in connection with a high-profile case – ads depicting sharks, rabid dogs, and other vivid symbols. Rejecting recommendations from advisors and ignoring all conventional political wisdom, Earle did not respond to such ads, but prevailed anyway. In his entire career, Earle neither aired nor allowed a negative ad of any kind against any opponent.

Unopposed last terms

After winning the two contested re-election campaigns, beginning in early 2003, Earle took time from his community justice efforts to lead a massive investigation into crimes committed in the November 2002 Texas elections. The investigation resulted in indictments and convictions in a raft of connected cases involving numerous individuals and corporations for illegally influencing races for the Texas Senate and House of Representatives in an attempt to alter the makeup of Congress through redistricting. A feature-length documentary film entitled “The Big Buy” focused on the national impact of these cases and Earle’s role in pursuing them. These major prosecutions to enforce a 100-year-old Texas law banning corporate contributions to candidates for public office continued for years and consumed most of Earle’s efforts during his last term.

Recognition

Under Earle’s tenure, the Travis County District Attorney’s Office was named one of ten model offices in the country by the National District Attorney’s Association. Earle’s office was also chosen as one of four national models of community-based prosecution by the U.S. Department of Justice. The Kennedy School of Government selected Earle as one of four district attorneys in the nation for a Harvard University study on innovative, community-oriented prosecutors.

Earle earned countless awards, including:

• Texas Bar Foundation Award for Advancing Legal Ethics in Texas;

• Women 2000 Award from the Austin Women’s Political Caucus for initiatives improving the quality of life for women and their families in Austin and Travis County;

• Neighborhood Peacemaker Award from the Austin Dispute Resolution Center;

• Elected Official of the Year Award from the Central Texas Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration;

• Texas Prosecutor of the Year Award by the Crime Victims Clearinghouse;

• Most Outstanding Young Lawyer in Austin; and

• Eagle Scout.

He was also presented with a Gold Record by the Recording Industry Association of America for investigations and prosecutions protecting the creative rights of artists, musicians, composers and the recording industry from theft of copyrighted work.

The longest sitting district attorney in Travis County history, Earle held that office for 32 years. At the time of his retirement the office had 83 assistant DA’s, 17 investigators and hundreds of support staff. It is estimated that during his tenure he was responsible for the prosecution of more than 100,000 cases.

Because of his standard responses to criticisms of various prosecutions, he was sometimes referred to as “just doing my job Earle.” His personal political motto for facing the rigors and risks of highly publicized controversial cases was “Today is a good day to die.” Asked about his reaction to the opinions of those who did not favor some of his official actions and approaches, his only comment was, “to some a dream, to others a nightmare.”

Earle was known for his laughter and colorful remarks, love of justice and devotion to equality under the law.