Dan Patrick’s smart choice adds credibility to Ken Paxton trial

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick made a wise decision this week in choosing retired Dallas judge Lana Myers to assist him in the Senate impeachment trial of Attorney General Ken Paxton.

The Republican lawyer and jurist is well known in local legal circles and has a strong, bipartisan reputation for fairness and impartiality. Those are vital qualities that we expect she’ll bring to Austin, lending credibility and calm to what is sure to be a highly-charged political proceeding.

As legal counsel to Patrick, Myers, 69, will assist him “on matters related to all rulings, orders, mandates, writs, questions of evidence and processes authorized by the rules of the court of impeachment,” the trial rules note.

The more Patrick relies on her expertise and demeanor, the better.

Myers was a well-known and liked prosecutor, first under the supervision of former Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade, a Democrat, then under former District Attorney John Vance, a Republican, from 1982 to 1993.

She was elected to the 203rd State District Court overseeing felony cases in 1994, and served on that bench for 14 years. Admirably, Myers refused to switch to the Democratic Party when the political tides began to change in the early 2000s as many other judges did to help win re-election.

At the time she said doing so would betray her principles. Years later she lauded Mattel’s issuance of a line of Judge Barbie dolls as an important message to young girls that “you, too, can be a judge.”

In late 2009, as the only remaining Republican felony judge in Dallas County, Myers was seeking re-election to her fifth term when Gov. Rick Perry appointed her to the 5th District Court of Appeals. She won election to that bench in 2010 and was re-elected once more in 2016.

This editorial board endorsed her candidacies, noting the high marks she consistently received in the nonpartisan Dallas Bar Association’s biennial judicial evaluation poll, both as a trial court and appellate judge.

The bar’s high regard for Myers continued through her last term. She had the highest marks of any of the 5th District justices in its 2021 poll, the last conducted before her 2022 retirement. Respondents gave her an overall approval rating of 65%, and 76% said she demonstrated a “proper judicial temperament and demeanor.”

Perhaps one of the highest endorsements she could receive, though, was given to us this week by former felony judge and retired 5th District Justice Ron Chapman, a longtime influential and highly-respected Democrat.

“I have known Justice Myers for decades as a friend, an attorney and a fellow jurist,” Chapman said. “Her reputation for fairness and competency is unquestionable.”

Questions of fairness are sure to surround the high-profile Paxton impeachment trial as soon as it gets underway Sept. 5, not just inside the Capitol in Austin, but in coffeehouses and at dinner tables all over Texas. We’re confident that Myers is the right person to sit at Patrick’s right hand to help deflect those concerns and provide him with sound and fair legal counsel.