Nico LaHood was the Bexar County Criminal District Attorney for one term. During his time, the District Attorney's office was changed in many ways with the inclusion of new programs. Outside of his time in elected office, he is a well-known criminal defense trial attorney and now hosts a podcast called R-Rated Christianity. We had a great talk on a broad range of topics.

Transcript:

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Justin Hill: Hello and Bienvenido San Antonio. Welcome to the Alamo Hour discussing the people, places and passion that make our city. My name is Justin Hill, a local attorney, a proud San Antonian and a keeper of chickens and bees. On the Alamo Hour, you'll get to hear from the people that make San Antonio great and unique and the best-kept secret in Texas. We're glad that you're here.

All right, welcome to the Alamo Hour. Today's guest is Nico LaHood. Nico's the former criminal district attorney of Bexar County, criminal defense lawyer. He's got his own podcast, R-Rated Christianity. He's a public persona. he's very vocal about his faith, being a father and a husband.

Nico LaHood: Thanks for having me [unintelligible 00:00:53]. How are you doing?

Justin: Nico, thanks for joining us. I'm doing great man. I'm doing great. Are you hanging in there?

Nico: [crosstalk] no complaints. I was shocked to hear that you're a keeper of chickens and bees.

Justin: I do. I have two beehives. Well, I've got to keep my hands busy, I think. It's idle time, right?

Nico: I'd like to-- we're talking about a garden, God Willing in this next season, especially with all this craziness, you can't find toilet paper or food during these last months. I'm not going to do anything about the toilet paper but the chickens has been an idea and people have suggested the bees because we have some land that it might be beneficial.

Justin: The chickens are really easy, and they're funny and they're social animals and the bees are set it and forget it.

Nico: We have foxes and coyotes in my area though. We have to be really thoughtful.

Justin: You've to have a good coop that you close at night. That's the key. Nico, I start all these with usually about 10 questions. If there's any way you can speak up a little louder or get closer to your mic, I want to make sure that I don't sound completely overpowering. I'm going to do fewer questions with you because I want to get into some stuff. First, I always ask people, what are your favorite hidden gems of the city? You're born and raised here, so what are some of the kept secrets you think of the city?

Nico: Being around my family. [chuckles] I love my kids, [unintelligible 00:02:11] my wife is too good for my stupid ass. Oh, I'm sorry, [unintelligible 00:02:15] podcast. [crosstalk].

Justin: Go for it.

Nico: I married up. I'm really kind of a, it's either church, workout and I work out in my garage now. I've been doing that for years since I've been in public office. I started working out at the house to save time. I just enjoy my family now. Now that I'm not out speaking six, seven days a week in this meeting or that meeting, I have rediscovered weekends. We just have occasional dinners, invite a lot of friends and fellowship. We're just really simple.

Justin: What about visitors who come in? I always tell them go check out the Japanese Tea Garden. I think that's a great [crosstalk] thing in the town.

Nico: I send people to the missions. I love history, now. I think I got a D when I was in history, younger.

Justin: There you go.

Nico: I can't get enough of history now. I've gone back and started setting the Constitution and the Articles of Confederation, the federalist papers and Bill of Rights and all that declaration and constant. I just love it now, I can't get enough of it. I like to send them to historical places. Of course, they already know about the Riverwalk. That's it.

Justin: That's a good one. I think the other missions-- I was here three years before I finally saw them and was disappointed it took me so long. Next question. Have you caught up with Chasnoff lately?

Nico: I have nothing for him anymore because [unintelligible 00:03:34].

Justin: You all had such a public spat. I didn't know if I have to get [crosstalk].

Nico: If Brian reached out to me and he wanted to talk, if he ever needed prayer, if he ever needed counsel, if he was ever accused of a crime, I would fight for him like I fight for all my clients and I would minister to him like I minister to anybody with I'm doing prison ministry or somebody in our Bible study. I also tell him when he's wrong, and I'll tell him the truth and I'll tell it harshly or softly. However he wants.

I have to admit that he is irritating because I don't believe and this is my opinion that he's an honest person. I can prove that if he ever would ever talk to me, but he hasn't. Even though I'm called in my faith, Justin, as you know, to forgive, and it's a choice, it's not a feeling. I've chosen to do that with a lot of people and I forgive him. If he ever needs help or if you ever need anything, I'm here for him.

Justin: That was really just messed up.

Nico: That's an honest answer.

Justin: No, no I appreciate it. I didn't know if after it was all said and done there was like a call of, "Hey man." How would you describe R-Rated Christianity? I've listened to a few episodes.

Nico: The R-Rated catches people's attention. It stands for real raw and redemption. The real is we talk about real topics. We're not very Christianese language, obviously. We don't talk about the typical Kumbaya topics in a church to feel good. We talk about real topics. We do it in a raw way. I use some slang that that pisses off some church people. I never use the Lord's name in vain. I don't drop any f-bombs on that podcast because I consider my audience and my faith and Ephesians 4:29 tells me to consider my audience. [crosstalk].

Justin: [unintelligible 00:05:14]

Nico: I didn't get close on some of these, but it's an apologetic style podcast. What that means it comes from the Greek word of Apollo Gaea to give an answer. When you look at the Greek Apollo Gaea, it's to give a defense almost like a defense attorney defending your client. I always tell people my number one client is a first-century Jew named Jesus. He went by Joshua, but as they translated it to Jesus.

I give a defense for why are you a Christian? What does that mean? Tell me about this topic. I think the church has done a crappy job answering some really good questions that people have and especially our young people. I think that sucks and they don't honor God, [unintelligible 00:05:48]. Did you say I could use slang every once in a while? Is that okay?

Justin: Do whatever you want.

Nico: It drives the shit out of me when people, they falsely accuse and convict my faith and God for something He didn't do. Bill Maher's really good at it. I would love to talk to him someday. He just has a misunderstanding of the faith. I went through a deep dive, Justin, as you've heard probably in some of my talks. After my brother was murdered, I was pissed off at God. I asked a bunch of questions. Questions that the typical Christian or the typical church person doesn't ask and there's answers to that.

It was a hard road. It was a rough road, I lived in the prism of anger and unforgiveness for years. I was released from that and I'm forever grateful to God for that. I had answers for why I'm a Christian. This podcast in a raw way, not fake Kumbaya way talks about a real guy, who I believe was the Messiah and God incarnate. Then there's answers to all these questions people have, and so we try to address the real questions.

Justin: I was the editor of the law review at Baylor and one of the articles we published was a analysis of the criminal prosecution of Jesus. That Professor then went on to write a book about it. That was [crosstalk].

Nico: I would love to read that. Let me tell you, because that is the most famous murder scene in the history of mankind, Jesus Christ. You should describe it. In this first-century, he was murdered by the Romans and they were really damn good at murdering people. He did not get the due process as you know from doing that review, there was a Jewish law in place that due process they tried Him at nighttime.

Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate and Herod, nobody could find anything wrong with Him. They just gave into the mob mentality, kind of what we're seeing today, ironically. Pilate just said, screw it, man, give them Jesus. I don't know what the hell you want Him for. We'll give you Barabus, kill this guy. He couldn't find anything wrong with him. There was no due process. He didn't confront His witnesses. He didn't have effective assistance of counsel. He wasn't tried by his peers, and it was done in a very expedient way and in the night. It was a murder scene. It was not done justly. It's interesting you did that article. I didn't know about that.

Justin: I didn't write it. I published it though. I will send it to you. That Professor went on to write a whole book on it and it's been redone. I think they did a video of it too. You're an attorney, you're a trial lawyer, I have heard people that even have said, "Well, I'm not a big Nico fan but man that guy's good in trial." Some of these prosecutors that you ruffled their feathers back in the day. I've heard many people say how good you are in trail. What are your thoughts on Zoom trials?

Nico: None at all. [unintelligible 00:08:24] There's no way. You've got someone cross-examination, your read body language, walking, and talking evidencing, objecting. How do you approach the bench? How do you know that if you're not or in a jury box right now, how do I know that [unintelligible 00:08:39] my uncle was in the back watching too, and he gives me history's damn sense and nobody asked for. It's a horrible idea. I have a lot of opinions about what's going on right now. Zoom trials it's not constitutional and I would never support it or advise it for a client.

Justin: Yes, there's an ABA article and there was some jurors, one of them was on a peloton working out for another one cuddled up in their bed with her cat. I want to talk to you a little bit about your run as DA. I think, to some extent it unfairly got clouded in some of the controversies that happened, but you actually did a lot and changed a lot of the processes within the DA's office that I don't think got enough attention at the time. You did pre-trial diversion. You changed the Public Integrity unit. Maybe I said that wrong, how you titled it, but talk to me about some of your accomplishments in the DAs office.

Nico: We went from [unintelligible 00:09:30] public integrity unit. We started a law enforcement integrity unit that of course, pissed off some of the union at first. They realized damn, if I'm in the right Nico is going to stand in front of us. If I'm in the wrong, I got some problems. That's the way it should be, by the way. We started a conviction integrity unit because it was like only the ninth in the country, third in the state only at the time, because we should have honest and good convictions.

Our oath was to ensure justice was done not to secure convictions. That means did we get it right? And people are, why are you starting to conviction integrity unit? Because I'm the DA and my responsibility is to protect the community from itself, but also from the government. I'm not a big government guy, I'm a libertarian leaning Republican now but I've always been the same.

Even when I ran as a Democrat, I was a blue dog Democrat. I was proud to be a Democrat back then and a blue dog Democrat but I believed in small government [unintelligible 00:10:23] take care of my roads, make sure we don't get foreign invaders, make sure we can do business and protect us from each other, and that includes a good justice system, and I was honored to serve as District attorney. I never thought I could. Justin, as you know, I was arrested for selling drugs when I was younger. My brother was murdered in my driveway. People thought I was going to go straight to prosecution and I ended up being a defense attorney for almost a little over 13 years and I did it passionately, as you mentioned earlier, and I was honored to serve as DA and I think I did a different perspective.

What I am not good at, brother, is I am a shitty politician because I don't tell people what they want to hear. I tell them the truth. My no is a no my yes is a yes, I'll give you my answer. I won't try a case in the court of public opinion and I'll meet with anybody. I never--you can ask anybody that worked with me at the time. Anybody would--I never said no to a meeting. I've been in the toughest meetings, Justin, you can ever imagine in meetings where the prosecutor's like, damn, Nico, why'd you do that to their family? Because I either chose against the death penalty or something.

Everyone thought I was going to be this pro death, which I am. I'm a responsible supporter of the death penalty. Responsible, that's the keyword. Many times I chose against it because of the facts or law or the way juries were moving in that season and I met with every family. I never told a family no Justin, and because that wasn't given the respect to us by Governor Perry at the time, I made sure that I didn't-- I wasn't a hypocrite.

Justin: Talk to me about the pretrial diversion because Susan Reed was very staunchly against any type of pretrial diversion program. What is a pretrial diversion program and then how did you Institute it or what did you bring to pass as you [crosstalk] with the DA?

Nico: Yes. We did a couple of things. We did the first adjudication on obstruction of highway, which is different on DWI cases. Before they changed the laws, we were ahead of the curve on that because people were forced, their lives are being substantially altered and rightfully so, they've taken responsibility, but come on, man, they had a conviction on their record. So we started there and then pretrial diversion, think about pretrial, diverting the adjudication of any type of adjudication of guilt or even deferred adjudication and the key to pretrial diversion is you can get it expunged.

That's the key so it's a special type of supervision. It doesn't--we ran it through the probation office. I worked very well with the probation department. It's just a no brainer. It's in the statute. We allow it. Why would we want to do it for certain nonviolent crimes? You know, I had a huge advocacy and I think we instilled a restorative justice model because I think I'm a product of restorative justice from what I went through with the justice system when I was young and very foolish, but yet I was harsh on violent crimes.

Genene Jones, no one said could be prosecuted and we prosecuted Genene Jones because of the hard work that one of my law partners, Jason Gossan and Jay and other people and myself, we worked on together, she's going to meet the Lord from prison where she belongs and that's justice, that's the right result.

Pretrial diversion, you get back to that answer, it's a wonderful opportunity for a first time offender or for whenever a prosecutor used their discretion and feels that it's appropriate for someone to expunge a case if they fulfill all the stat, the requirements of their agreement with the state and with the government and the judge, so it doesn't go on their record and it can be expunged. So we implemented that and I think it was the right thing to do.

Justin: What would you say were your biggest accomplishments at the DA's office?

Nico: The culture change. I think people enjoyed-- there was a lot of things and you'll never hear me say, and I never did when I was in office, me or my or I, it was always we, us and our. I was the leader of that organization for a period of time, the buck stopped with me. I never passed on, threw people under the bus. I took responsibility. I stood in front of the folks that worked with me, but the culture, I think people even now are saying that the culture was very different. I like to think that people enjoyed coming to work and took pride in being prosecutors. There was-- it's right here on my where's it at?

Oh, it's up there, everybody that left my office, it's right behind me said, do what's right not what's easy. Everybody knew that. Do what's right not what's easy is whatever-- here's where the only rules in the office don't do anything illegal. Obviously it's a DA's office. Don't do anything unethical. Obviously that's fine but do what's right. Do what's right. Not what's easy. I might not agree with you. You might get spoken to about it and learn from it, but you're never going to lose your job if you did what was ethical and what was legal.

For me, I always add in their moral, but I don't impose on anybody else, but so that was it. I think people enjoyed coming to work and appreciated the environment. Around 200-500 employees roughly.

Justin: Okay. We're a little different than some cities because our DA's office is also our County attorney, in which other counties have a County attorney and a DA. In our County, the district attorneys is in charge of both of those functions, right?

Nico: It's called the criminal district attorney, so in Travis County, they have a district attorney and to have a County attorney. The County attorney is the county's civil firm and they're also the misdemeanor prosecutors and then the district attorney handles all felony. For us in Harris County, I believe Tarrant County, there might be one other one. I can't think, I think there's one other one, but they're criminal district attorneys. That means that they handle all the felonies, child protective services, all the civil work and all the misdemeanors, so it's a big operation to overlook.

Justin: Yes. You would always say you were the criminal district attorney, even though you all had the civil function in house. I never really understood why. Your time in the DA's office and to be fair, I helped out with your first campaign where you were unsuccessful, your second campaign where you were successful. Your first campaign, those meetings at Panchito's I made friends that I still stay in touch with.

Your time in office, there was some controversy. There was the vaccine issues and there was the people that you would kind of engage with on social media or in the comments section of the San Antonio express. Do you think those took away from the good...