From: Cindy Stormer [cstormer@ntin.net]

Letter to the Editor:

I hope the good citizens of Cooke County see that you are printing daily attacks on the District Attorney’s Office from people that know nothing about the facts of the cases, regarding resolutions of cases.  And at the same time citizens who want to print favorable letters to the editor must pay for an ad to accomplish this.

Regarding my former political opponent’s attack about a 10 year old offense that has been covered repeatedly in this paper.  Like many of the cases I have been attacked on in this campaign, I was not the attorney that handled the revocation, though I take responsibility for everything that occurs in that office.  In a revocation, the judge does not have to give the sentence agreed upon if it did not seem appropriate.  The attorney handling the case (who is no longer with the office) did not want to take the chance that the defendant would not get any sentence at all.  The only basis for the revocation was a technical violation i.e., the defendant did not commit a new offense while on probation.  We have seen a situation where new offenses were committed while a defendant was on probation yet the judge did not revoke the probation i.e., send the defendant to prison - even though we had a contested hearing and put on evidence requesting that the defendant be sent to prison.  The attorneys in the District Attorney’s office make the best decisions they can given the circumstances in the case.

District Attorney

Cindy Stormer