Criminal Justice
Tattooed Texas Judge, Ex-Cocaine Addict, Says He Can Relate to Defendants
Posted Nov 17, 2008, 04:29 pm CST
By Martha Neil
Clean and sober for a decade, a newly elected Texas district judge says his earlier battles with cocaine and alcohol addiction will be an asset on the bench because they will help him relate to defendants.
And the same is true of his sleeve of tattoos, which reflect his life experiences, criminal defense attorney Kevin Fine tells the Houston Chronicle. He will take the Harris County bench in January.
In fact, Fine focused his campaign on his life experiences, saying that they would make him a better judge than his Republican opponent, incumbent Devon Anderson. He expects that they will help him detect when defendants in felony cases with addiction issues are telling the truth.
An addict since his teens, Fine straightened out his life, with the help of an intensive detox program, after a supervising lawyer knocked on his office door one day and told him he had a serious problem he needed to address.
"I'm probably the only district judge with this many tattoos," Fine tells the newspaper. "At least the only one we know about.