Judge Diaz is still in her first term as an elected district court judge, but she is already making her mark on creating new systems to address domestic violence. If you enjoyed the episode with Gary Slutkin, you will enjoy hearing about this innovative approach to domestic violence.
Transcript:
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Justin Hill: Hello and Bienvenidos, San Antonio. Welcome to the Alamo Hour, discussing the people, places, and passion that make our city. My name is Justin Hill, a local attorney, a proud San Antonian, and keeper of chickens and bees. On the Alamo Hour, you'll get to hear from the people that make San Antonio great and unique, and the best-kept secret in Texas. We're glad that you're here.
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All right. Welcome to the Alamo Hour, today's guest is Judge Monique Diaz, the 150th Judicial District elected judge here in Bexar County, thanks judge for being here.
Monique Diaz: Hi Justin. Thank you for having me, that was quite the introduction.
Justin: Well, we put a lot of work into it. Judge Diaz and I go way back long before either of us were really more than just trying to find our way in the legal, and showing up at political fundraisers for one reason or another, and the lowest of the low people on the totem pole at that point. We met a long time ago and we've stayed in touch and now you're a judge, and I kind of know how to find the courthouse now so we've grown up a little bit.
Monique: We sure have. It's been quite a while and there's no need to really find the courthouse anymore because everything is on Zoom so-
Justin: This is true.
Monique: -you can find it at the comfort of your home, Justin.
Justin: Unfortunately, some of the smaller counties though don't really like the Zoom and there are some places that are requiring people to show up.
Monique: I have heard that that's the case and it's my understanding that under the Supreme Court has issued a series of orders that have helped guide our decisions, in whether we can have in-person hearings or not. It's my understanding that some counties can do that, if they have a plan that's been pre-approved and if their local county officials decide to proceed with that. Here in Bexar County, we're not quite ready for that yet.
Justin: Well, there was a federal court case in Sherman, Texas that got going and last I heard, they had traced it out to 40 people that had gotten sick from just that trial. They canceled it midway and then just, it went gangbusters.
Monique: I saw that Justin, and that's one of the reasons why we're being really careful here in Bexar County. We do have a plan that was approved by the Supreme Court already however, our local administrative judge and our local officials are not ready to proceed yet. They're really relying primarily on the Metro Health recommendations on when it's safe for us to all proceed.
Now, we have plexiglass up in our courtrooms and we're ready to go otherwise, but I think they're looking at things like-- They have some a matrix where they look at the positivity rate, the death rate, and the amount of hospital beds, so that's part of what we're looking to. I don't see us being ready by the tentative April-1st deadline that you may have heard about.
Justin: It's good that we have elected officials paying attention to science in their decision-making. We're going to get to the courthouse here in a second, I want to ask you some questions about that, but just some of the-- We go through general getting to know you, this is San Antonio podcast, San Antonio stuff.
Judge, what are you doing to decompress during all this, because honestly it, at first I think we were all like, “Oh, let's...
