If Roe v. Wade is overturned, Texas district attorney offices would become a new battleground. | via TexasTribune
Protesters hold signs outside of the Starr County Jail in Rio Grande City on April 9, 2022. People protested in support of Lizelle Herrera, a woman being held at the jail on a count of murder for allegedly having a self-induced abortion.
Three days after the initial arrest, Starr County District Attorney Gocha Ramirez said he would be exercising “prosecutorial discretion” by dropping the charges. Wade was not a virulent abortion opponent; according to the Washington Post, he never even read the Supreme Court decision that bore his name.
But now, the U.S. Supreme Court is reconsidering that decision. If the court overturns Roe v. Wade this summer, as many believe they will, individual district attorneys may once again become responsible for deciding if and when to pursue criminal charges in abortion cases. But even within Texas, there may be two distinct realities. Five Texas district attorneys — from Dallas, Travis, Bexar, Nueces and Fort Bend counties — have publicly promised that they will not pursue abortion-related criminal charges if Roe v. Wade is overturned. Others are expected to quietly decline to take these cases.
Owen, who authored a report on abortion-related criminalization, said there’s a useful foreshadowing in how voter fraud cases have played out in recent years. “Except that there’s always political checks on them for failing to prosecute crimes that their citizens want prosecuted,” he said. “That’s how you get defeated next time you run for district attorney.”
“All I can say is that the courts and the state constitution have been very clear that elected district attorneys have sole criminal jurisdictions in their community,” he said.But Cain’s proposition does point to a looming question: If Roe v. Wade is overturned and the trigger law goes into effect, what’s next?
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