Candidates announce they will run for O'Neill's Texas Supreme Court seat

Shortly after Texas Supreme Court Justice Harriet O’Neill announced Aug. 6 that she will not seek re-election in 2010, two Republican candidates made it known they plan to run for her Place 3 seat. Justice Jim Moseley of Dallas’ 5th Court of Appeals and Justice Rick Strange of Eastland’s 11th Court of Appeals, both Republicans, indicate they plan to make the race. In 1996, then-Gov. George W. Bush appointed Moseley to the 5th Court. Before joining the court, Moseley practiced nine years with Dallas’ Locke Purnell Rain Harrell, now Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell, where he became a shareholder. Moseley served as regional director of the Federal Trade Commission in Dallas from 1983 to 1987. Strange was a shareholder in the Midland office of Cotton Bledsoe Tighe & Dawson, where he practiced for more than 20 years. Gov. Rick Perry appointed Strange to the 11th Court in 2005. Democrat Bill Moody, judge of El Paso’s 34th District Court since 1986, says he plans to run for the state Supreme Court but has not decided which seat he will seek. In 2006, Moody unsuccessfully challenged Republican Supreme Court Justice Don Willett but shone a spotlight on the race by taking a walk across Texas. Moody says he originally told supporters he would not run for O’Neill’s seat because of his respect for her. But Moody says he will take another look at the Place 3 race now that O’Neill has decided not to run again. O’Neill first won election to the state’s all-Republican Supreme Court in 1998 and is the only woman on the court. “I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot here,” O’Neill says. “It just seemed time to start something new.” O’Neill is a founding member of the Texas Access to Justice Commission and spearheaded the creation of the Supreme Court’s Permanent Commission for Children, Youth and Families.
-- Mary Alice Robbins