By Shannon EdmondsTDCAA Executive Director in Austin
“Everything changes; nothing stands still.” —Heraclitus of Ephesus
Happy 2025! For those of you keeping track at home, TDCAA is starting off the new year with a new executive director (yours truly!), three new employees (Hector Valle, Kristin Burns, and Joseph Studer, welcomed in our last issue), three new executive committee members, six new general Board members, and 62 elected prosecutor members who were not in that role 12 months ago. Allow me to introduce you to some of them here.
New TDCAA leadership
Our association leaders for the year were elected at TDCAA’s Annual Business Meeting in December. The new leadership positions for 2025 are:
Board Chair: Erleigh Wiley, CDA in Kaufman County
President: David Holmes, CA in Hill County
President-Elect: Brian Middleton, DA in Fort Bend County
Secretary-Treasurer: Philip Mack Furlow, 106th Judicial DA
Other two-year Board positions filled last month are:
Criminal DA-at-large: Jim Hicks, CDA in Taylor County
County Attorney-at-large: Landon Lambert, CA in Donley County
Region 1 Director: Rickie Redman, C&DA in Lamb County
Region 2 Director: Sean Galloway, C&DA in Andrews County
Region 4 Director: John Hubert, DA in Kleberg & Kenedy Counties
Region 7 Director: Trey Brown, CA in Somervell County
TDCAA’s Board of Directors is the engine that drives our association. Please join me in congratulating all our new Board members, and if they reach out to you for information or assistance, please consider lending them a hand.
New elected members
Most local prosecutor elections in Texas coincide with U.S. Presidential election years. For 2024, that meant roughly 280 district attorney and county attorney offices were up for grabs. (Criminal district attorneys usually run in the mid-term elections with statewide officeholders such as the governor, but there are always some offices that do not follow the general rule. That’s one reason why TDCAA exists—to keep track of all this madness!)
After the dust settled from all the elections and other mid-term appointments last year, we find ourselves welcoming 62 newly elected prosecutors to their first full year in office in 2025. That’s much too long of a list to reproduce here, but allow me to share some general data about this group:
• Gender: 34 men, 28 women (55 percent and 45 percent)
• Political party: 56 Republicans, 6 Democrats (90 percent and 10 percent)
• Contested primary election races: 57
• Contested general election races: 9
As you can see, the vast majority of Texas prosecutors take or retain their office through uncontested elections. (More than 200 did this year.) That is a long-standing national phenomenon, not something unique to Texas or to this election cycle. But don’t mistake lack of political competition for lack of interest in what you do—the upcoming legislative session will prove that.
Elected Prosecutor Conference recap
It was great seeing so many new faces at our Newly Elected Prosecutor Boot Camp and the subsequent Elected Prosecutor Conference in The Woodlands last month. When you add in all the “repeat customers,” we had more than 200 elected prosecutors and other members of their leadership teams join us for several days of top-notch training. The Elected Prosecutor Conference also provides our state’s top prosecutors with a unique opportunity to network and confer with their peers in a collegial setting. If you are an elected prosecutor who hasn’t made it to this conference in a while, be sure to pencil in the next one on your calendar now because we will be at the Hyatt Regency on the Riverwalk in San Antonio in December 2025.
Legislative resources
It wouldn’t be an odd-numbered year without a lot of talk (dare we say, angst?) about the legislative session. With so many of our members having diverse interests and goals, it’s impossible for TDCAA to represent any individual prosecutor at the capitol. Instead, we focus on empowering our members to achieve their own policy victories under the Big Pink Dome in Austin—even if that means maintaining the status quo on some important issues. To do that, we offer a variety of resources and assistance to our members, including weekly email updates, memos on how to be effective at the capitol, and more. (Reach out to me or Hector for more details on those resources.)
But perhaps the most important way in which we can help you is by providing you with a home base when you are in Austin. Our offices are mere blocks from the capitol with free parking, wi-fi, and meeting space. If you are coming to Austin, remember that our office is your office! And if you have the urge to be more involved in the legislative process but don’t know where to start, reach out to us for more details on how you can get involved. We are old hands at helping new prosecutors find their way around in Austin, and we’d love to help.
Honors for Rob Kepple
Finally, on behalf of the entire TDCAA staff, I would like to congratulate Rob Kepple for being awarded an honorary life membership in TDCAA. This special recognition is just one of the many ways in which we at TDCAA—both members and employees—can show our appreciation for Rob’s many years of dedicated service to our association and our profession. Congratulations on a well-earned distinction, Rob! We look forward to you staying in the fold in your new role as Foundation executive director.
Rob was also honored with an award in his name at September’s Annual Conference. The Kepple Award honors recipients whose career accomplishments have left an indelible mark on the field of Texas criminal prosecution.
This award is intended to honor those whose career body of work has impacted the efforts that Texas prosecutors undertake every day in a way that will continue for years to come. Recipients may include prosecutors, those who lead prosecution-affiliated organizations, people who work with victims of crime, law enforcement officials, legislators, and others who have created a lasting, positive impact on our field of work.
This award was created in 2024 to honor longtime TDCAA Executive Director Rob Kepple for his incomparable service to Texas prosecutors for over 20 years. The design of the award, a crystal mountain peak, memorializes not only one of Rob’s favorite activities, hiking, but also the skill, dedication, and discipline it takes for recipients of this award to reach the summit of our profession.
The Kepple Award shall run in tandem with the Prosecutor of the Year Award and the Lone Star Award, meaning that TDCAA members can forward nominations in writing to TDCAA’s Nominations Committee, which in turn makes a recommendation to the TDCAA Board.