We recommend 8th place in the race for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Texans have a clear choice in the race for Place 8 on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. They should elect District Judge Chika Anyiam, a Democrat who has competently presided over a criminal court in Dallas County for nearly six years.

Anyiam, 57, a judge at Criminal District Court 7, said the state’s highest criminal appeals court is no place for politics and should remain independent of the influence of other branches of government. She said the court also takes too long to decide cases, a problem she would work to alleviate. We agree on both points.

Her opponent is Republican defense attorney Lee Finley, 54, of Collin County, who has no legal experience but unseated incumbent Judge Michelle Slaughter in the March primary. Slaughter was among those on the all-Republican court who voted 8-1 against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a 2021 ruling that limited his ability to prosecute election fraud cases. Paxton openly targeted Slaughter and two other justices who were up for re-election. All three were defeated in the primary.

Finley, a former Marine, did not participate in our general election endorsement process. But in the primary, he called his policies “extremely right” and said the Paxton ruling was a key reason for his candidacy. This shows that he may be more interested in pleasing his political allies than governing according to the law.

In deciding not to recommend Finley for the primary, we also cited a September 2023 Facebook post in which he wrote that he “officially came out as CISHET,” referring to heterosexuals who identify as their birth gender identify. Politics aside, such caustic commentary suggests a lack of judicial temperament and impartiality.

By contrast, in our interview, Anyiam displayed the kind of thoughtful presence we like to see on the bench. That became particularly clear when we asked about a 2022 decision to reduce a murder suspect’s bail, which sparked a public backlash that led to her withdrawing from the man’s cases.

Anyiam told us she made her decision after a lengthy hearing in which the defendant argued that the original bail amount was too high and prosecutors had failed in their duty to refute this. She said she later reinstated the man’s high bail after reviewing the case file following the backlash. She said she then recused herself to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest after her impartiality was questioned because the man’s lawyer was a campaign donor, although she told us that campaign contributions do not influence bail decisions had. We appreciated their openness.

Anyiam received an overall approval rating of 73% from attorneys who practiced before her in the Dallas Bar Association’s 2023 Judicial Evaluation Survey. She scored an even better 78% when respondents were asked whether she displayed “appropriate judicial temperament and conduct.” She also has a high case completion rate and is not one of the judges we have blamed for backlogs of cases in recent years.

Anyiam is the far more qualified and capable candidate for Place 8 on the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals.

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