Williamson County DA Suspended From Practicing Law For 18 Months

WILLIAMSON COUNTY, TX -- The State Bar of Texas recently placed Williamson County District Attorney Jana Duty on an 18-month probation for professional misconduct related to a murder case, according to a published report.

The probation was handed down on June 1, the Austin American-Statesman reported. The seven-page agreed judgment for probated suspension asserts Duty violated a March 2015 gag order prohibiting attorneys to discuss the matter publicly.

The violation centers on the case against Crispin Harmel, who is charged with capital murder, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated robbery for the 2009 killing of Jessika Kalaher.

Under terms of the probation, Duty must complete six additional hours of continuing legal education in the area of ethics before Sept. 1, in addition to the Minimum Continuing Legal Education requirements of the State Bar of Texas. The probation will run from June 1, 2016 to Nov. 30, 2017.

Terms of the plea deal also include an order for Duty to repay the State Bar of Texas $3,250 worth of attorney's fees and direct expenses, according to the document.

In late April, a judge ordered that a retrial in the Harmel case would move forward.

Harmel's first trial ended in a mistrial last year based on attorney's disputes over surveillance video. At the time, officials at the Williamson County District Attorney's Office said the video dispute was sparked after defense attorneys complained they were not able to access that bit of evidence.

Duty spoke to a television station as prosecutors and defense attorneys clashed over access to surveillance footage centered on Harmel's actions on the death of a woman later found in a Cedar Park Walmart parking lot.

“The defense apparently took this to mean no timeline could ever be shown in court to a jury and premised their strategy accordingly,” Duty said in an emailed statement to KXAN at the time. “There was no hiding or withholding of evidence on the state’s part. We simply found a way to play back the evidence in court in a manner that the defense could not for whatever reason do themselves.”

But it's not having spoken to KXAN that got Duty in trouble with the State Bar of Texas, but her communicating with the Austin American-Statesman, according to findings in the investigation.

According to the judgment, on May 6, 2015 Duty sent an email to the trial judge in the Harmel case alerting him she intended to make statements to the Statesman, in order to defend her actions in the case -- in violation of oral and written gag orders that had been in place for about two months.

Duty's statements later appeared in a May 7 article by the Statesman.

The judge in the case subsequently requested a meeting with both defense counsel and Duty. But instead of showing up at the meeting, Duty sent two representatives from the DA's office instead. She later explained her absence in an email to the judge, saying she felt disrespected by the court.

"If you feel I need to be reprimanded for communicating with The Statesman, I understand," Duty told the judge. "But making a public spectacle out of punishing me just hurts everyone. No one will come out unscathed."

The issue of the surveillance footage also figured prominently in the decision to suspend Duty's law license for 18 months. The investigation revealed Duty told a defense attorney the Walmart footage didn't have any time stamps as he had requested.

Ultimately, it was found that the video did contain embedded time stamps that required a particular type of software and specialized DVD player to see.

"The judge found that Respondent 'affirmatively stated to the Defense that a time-stamped copy of the video did not exist and did not correct that statement when she learned otherwise,' " the judgment reads. "The judge also found that Respondent [Duty] 'was aware of, and watched, the Walmart surveillance video with time stamps prior to trial but did not disclose this fact to the Defense.' "

Duty took office as the elected district attorney of Williamson County on Jan. 1, 2013. By May of that same year, Harmel was indicted for capital murder, aggravated kidnapping, and aggravated robbery.

KXAN News and other media outlets posted the full judgment. You can read the entire seven-page document by clicking here.