Rosenthal's reasons

The reason Chuck Rosenthal resigned as Harris County district attorney on Feb. 15 depends on whom you ask. Today, a spokesman for the Texas Office of the Attorney General says Rosenthal resigned last Friday after the AG’s office informed the DA's defense attorney, Ron Woods, that the AG’s office would file a removal action against Rosenthal this week. “Rather than fight it in state court, Rosenthal resigned,” says Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for the AG’s office. The AG’s office had been investigating Rosenthal’s actions in connection with a series of e-mails that became public recently to see if the state should seek to remove the DA from office under Chapter 87 of the Local Government Code. Due to a conflict, Harris County Attorney Mike Stafford had asked the AG’s office to investigate. But Woods, a solo practitioner in Houston, has a different reason why Rosenthal resigned. Woods says Strickland’s statement is accurate, “but at the same time, they said if he were to resign before any removal petition was filed, it would be closed as a removal.” Woods, hired by Rosenthal for the investigation by the AG’s office, says, “We are both saying the same thing. It’s not a contradiction.” Woods says Rosenthal resigned because the AG’s investigation was disrupting operations at the DA’s office, and those distractions would increase if the AG’s office sued to remove Rosenthal from office. Woods says he met with representatives of the AG’s office on Feb. 13, and with Rosenthal on Feb. 14, when the DA decided to resign. Stafford, who asked the AG’s office for assistance with the Rosenthal investigation because his office is representing and defending Harris County in an underlying civil right suit, can shed little light on the issue. “We have not been informed by the AG’s office that they were or were not going to file a removal action. And that’s why they were brought in, to make these decisions independently,” Stafford says. The e-mails at issue were made public as part of discovery in Erik Adam Ibarra, et al. v. Harris County, which is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. While Rosenthal, DA since 2001, resigned on Feb. 15, Gov. Rick Perry didn’t accept the resignation until Feb. 19. That’s the day Rosenthal’s brief resignation letter arrived at the governor’s office in Austin. The letter reads:

Dear Governor Perry:
I am resigning my post as the elected district attorney of Harris County, Texas effective 5:00 P.M. this date.
It has been a great honor to represent the people of Harris County both as an assistant district attorney and in my current capacity for nearly thirty-one years.
The 560 employees of this office are instrumental in protecting the 3.7 million residents of this county. Please pick my successor carefully.

Sincerely,
Charles A. Rosenthal, Jr.

Bill Delmore, chief of the legal services bureau at the DA’s office, says that until Perry appoints a successor, Rosenthal will continue to be the signatory for all official actions of the DA’s office. During that period, Delmore says, Rosenthal will continue to be compensated, but he will not come into the office. Krista Piferrer, deputy press secretary for Perry, says the governor does not know when he will appoint someone.

-- Brenda Sapino Jeffreys and Miriam Rozen