'Politically motivated': Judge Kocurek recuses herself from Austin police protest cases

A Travis County judge has recused herself from the criminal cases of four Austin officers who are accused of aggravated assault against protesters in May 2020, after — according to a prosecutor's filing made public this week — she told the prosecutor in February that the cases appeared politically motivated. State District Judge Julie Kocurek on Tuesday recused herself from the cases of officer Justin Berry, who is running for Texas House District 19, as well as officers Joseph Cast, Joshua Jackson and Stanley Vick. A grand jury indicted 19 Austin officers in total on charges of aggravated assault during protests that happened in May 2020, and the other cases are on other judges' dockets. Her recusal comes after Dexter Gilford, the head of the district attorney's civil rights division, filed a document detailing a phone conversation he had with Kocurek about the cases.

Gilford related the conversation in an affidavit because, under the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, prosecutors must disclose any relevant evidence they're aware of, he wrote. In May and June 2020, demonstrators flooded the streets of Austin and cities across America, protesting the killing of George Floyd as well as other acts of deadly or violent police force. In Austin, more than three dozen people went to the hospital, several with critical injuries after police fired bags filled with lead pellets, also known as bean bag rounds. Attorneys representing the officers have said the police faced attacks — including having objects such as water bottles and rocks thrown at them — that justified their uses of force. On Feb. 17, a member of Gilford's staff contacted Kocurek's court administrator, alerting her that the special grand jury she empaneled had returned over a dozen indictments against officers. Kocurek sent Gilford a text that same day, asking him to call her, which he did in the presence of his colleague, he wrote. "Once Judge Kocurek answered my call, she said that she felt betrayed ... because there were so many indictments against police officers," Gilford wrote. Gilford responded that he didn't believe he or anyone in his office had done anything improper, according to the document.