Dozens of Texas families are campaigning against uber-liberal Austin District Attorney Jose Garza, who they say is “revictimizing” them after the deaths of their loved ones by not calling for strict prison sentences for their killers and attackers.
More than 70 survivors of rape and other violent crimes and the victims’ families in the Austin area have formed a group to air their grievances with Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza.
Backed by liberal billionaire George Soros, Garza came to power in 2021 after the George Floyd election — promising to prosecute bad cops and reform the justice system, especially for Black and brown lawbreakers.
“I thought he would be lenient with people caught with pot, not that he would let murderers go,” Conny Branham, whose son was murdered in June 2020, told DailyMail.com.
Chris Branham, 26, was brutally beaten by a gang of five people who stomped on his face in a motel.
Two of the suspects drove him to a remote corn field, where the father of two tried to flee but was ultimately shot dead.
Jose Garza was elected in 2020 and is currently running for re-election. The Democrat has a primary challenger, Jeremy Sylestine
Chris Branham, 26, was killed in June 2020 after his body was dumped in a field outside Austin
Chris Branham (left) and his mother, Conny, (right) visit the beach in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 2016
It took 37 days for his body to be found and his mother said he was mummified by then.
Five people were involved in his mob-style beating, with the drug dealers believing Branham was a police informant, prosecutors said.
Only three of the five arrested suspects received a prison sentence.
A man and a teenage girl who shared a video on Snapchat of her kicking and breaking Branham’s jaw had their charges dropped.
Kyle Cleveland, the man who prosecutors say fired the shots that killed Branham, was originally charged with murder, but the charge was later reduced and he was offered a 14-year plea deal.
Kyle Cleveland and Anthony Davis both received plea deals from Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza for their roles in the beating, kidnapping and shooting of Chris Branham
The district attorney’s office only informed the Branhams that Garza was offering them plea deals after the paperwork had already been signed, Conny claims.
The grieving mother and her family have already gone to parole hearings to try to keep her son’s attackers in jail.
“It’s a total new victimhood,” Conny grumbled. “We, the victims, have to go to parole hearings and write letters, relive everything, every time, just to entertain a criminal.”
Then there are the cases that Garza outright refused to prosecute, resulting in charges being dropped — a nearly 50% increase compared to the previous prosecutor, a study by local TV station KXAN found it.
“It’s because he believes prison is bad,” says lawyer Jeremy Sylestine who is running against Garza, told DailyMail.com.
Jeremy Sylestine, a former prosecutor in Austin, Texas, is challenging Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza in the Democratic primary
Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza is known to oppose the death penalty and vows never to implement it while in office
“He believes he knows better than the citizens of Travis County who make up our juries. There is a reluctance to take cases to court and listen to what the community has to say. Instead of doing that, he would rather make a deal that hits the victim right in the face.”
The Democrat even offered a plea deal to Kaitlin Armstrong, the woman accused of briefly killing the woman with her boyfriend in a jealous rage.
Armstrong rejected the deal and instead went to trial in November. A jury found her guilty within three hours and sentenced her to 90 years in prison.
There are countless other stories like Branham’s about grieving families seeking justice who feel disrespected by Garza’s decision to drop charges or offer settlements.
“I just feel broken,” JR Lopez, whose daughter was shot in the head during a fatal road rage incident, bled out in her father’s arms.
JR Lopez pictured with his daughter Miranda, 21, who was murdered in 2021
Miranda Lopez, whose father says she loved being with her nieces and nephews, was shot in the head during a road rage incident in Austin, Texas
The two men who shot Miranda Lopez as she drove home with her sister were also offered plea deals, even though the families were told that state law allowed prosecutors to seek up to 99 years in prison.
Lopez said Garza refused to take the cases to trial.
“This is not justice,” the victim’s father said. “I’m not sure how much longer I can do this.”
Garza declined to be interviewed for this story, but he sent a statement to DailyMail.com defending his record.
“Over the past three years, the Public Prosecution Service has focused on holding people who commit violent crimes accountable and addressing the root causes of violence,” the statement said.
“This makes this one of the safest communities in the country.”
Garza, who previously worked as a federal public defender, originally ran for the position on the promise of becoming a different type of prosecutor.
“He’s someone who doesn’t know what he’s doing,” Sylestine added. “He’s not a trial lawyer. He has not been a criminal defense attorney for most of his career and has never stood before a Travis County jury in his entire life. I just don’t know if this is what Travis County expected in 2020.”
Garza’s campaign promises were to focus more on violent crimes and less on low-level drug crimes, he said liberal legal publication.
During his first 100 days in office, the Democrat ended the use of cash bail for people charged with simple, non-violent crimes.
Anita Byington, 21, was beaten to death in August 1992. Allen Andre Causey confessed to killing Byington over a drug dispute, and is now seeking exoneration through the Texas Innocence Project.
He is also actively working with the Innocence Project of Texas, the group best known for helping death row inmates avoid the death penalty, to review cases from 1985 through 1999. Department of Justice announced.
Garza is known for opposing the death penalty, and while running for office in 2020, he vowed he would never seek it if he became district attorney.
Kristina Byington and her family were stunned to learn that Garza was working to overturn a conviction for her cousin’s killer.
Allen Andre Causey was convicted of the murder of Anita Byington in July 1992.
‘I do not understand. How can you be pro-criminal,” Kristina Byington said.
Byington complained that the district attorney’s office hasn’t even had the courtesy to keep them informed of hearings, forcing them to hire an attorney to review the facts of the case.
The prosecutor’s outlier was that family was the most common complaint voiced by the families of several victims interviewed by DailyMail.com
Garza’s opponent, a former assistant district attorney, claims that 75 of about 95 prosecutors left the office under Garza’s tenure.
“It’s a huge percentage of experience and that can’t be replaced quickly, and I don’t know if he has the resources to teach people in a way that makes the public and the victims feel good about who’s handling these cases.” says Sylestine. declared.