Kim Ogg

Ogg began her legal career working for a District Attorney Johnny Holmes in 1987.[1] She was appointed as the first director for Houston's Anti-Gang Task Force in 1994 and unsuccessfully ran for district judge as a Republican in the 1996 election.[1][2] Ogg was the executive director of Crime Stoppers of Houston from 1999 to 2006 before leaving to practice law with her father.[3]

Kim Ogg ran on a moderate Democratic platform against Republican incumbent Devon Anderson, using her inauguration ceremony to announce that all misdemeanor marijuana cases would be diverted from arrest or prosecution.[4][5]

Her programs have helped more than 6,000 people with mental illness to get the help they need rather than a jail cell as part of an effort program to end cycles of arrest. She also received the Lone Star Award in December 2021 for her "outstanding leadership and distinctive contributions" to substance abuse and recovery support.[6]

During her tenure, dismissal rates have increased greatly with approximately half of felony cases ending in dismissal and over 70% of misdemeanor cases. Her staff suggest this may be a sign of successful pretrial diversion programs. Other criminal attorneys and advocates argue this may be due to aggressive prosecution and poor selection of cases, worsening the case backlog in the Harris County courts.[7]

In 2021, Ogg's office targeted and falsely accused Harris County Public Health COVID-emergency response team physician, Dr. Hasan Gokal, with criminal charges for redistributing 10 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to prevent them from being wasted prior to expiring. The case was dismissed and Ogg's office was rebuked by the judge, writing, “The Court emphatically rejects this attempted imposition of the criminal law on the professional decisions of a physician” and “It is difficult to understand any justification for charging any well-intentioned physician in this situation with a criminal offense”. He also wrote, “In the number of words usually taken to describe an allegation of retail shoplifting, the State attempts, for the first time, to criminalize a doctor’s documented administration of vaccine doses during a public health emergency”. [8]

Her Office has fought to ensure that no one who is found by a court to be intellectually disabled faces execution. [9]

In an effort to see that public safety resources are used to actually keep the public safer, Kim Ogg in early 2017 initiated a program that took a new approach: no one caught with under four ounces of cannabis, a misdemeanor amount, is subjected to arrest and the possibility of a criminal record. The program has given people the ability to avoid a criminal record and still be eligible for a job, an apartment or federal financial assistance. [10] In 2022, she spoke in support of arrests for cannabis possession in cases where it coincides with gun possession, because it is illegal in Texas to carry a gun while in possession of cannabis. This has resulted in "dozens of cases being dismissed every month" because Ogg's prosecutors are unable to prove that people being arrested are carrying cannabis, which is illegal in Texas, rather than hemp, which is legal.[11]

Kim Ogg has required that every instance in which a police officer shoots a civilian that the shooting be independently reviewed by prosecutors and that each case be presented to a grand jury to determine whether criminal charges are warranted. Civil Rights Division prosecutors handle the cases and go to the scene of each and every shooting. She has said that this is done to ensure that the community determines whether an indictment is warranted, and thus the officer is prosecuted, or the shooting be declared legal and thus, the officer cleared. [12]

Several Houston Police officers were charged with crimes, including one for murder, after two innocent Houston residents, Dennis Tuttle and his wife Rhogena Nicholas, were shot to death by police in their home. Some defense lawyers criticized the way Ogg's office handled the Harding Street Raid fallout. Prosecutors asked a judge to make a determination on what material to release to defense lawyers.[13][14] While many drug arrest cases, based on the work of those police officers, have been dismissed, Ogg's office has chosen to keep nearly all of the property seized from those defendants.[15]

After the raid, advocacy organizations called for Ogg to publish a "no call" list that her office maintains of police officers seen as unreliable potential witnesses due to behavior such as "lying, falsifying evidence, or making racist or violent statements."[16] Her office has refused to release both the list and the number of police officers on the list.[17]

Houston Watch, which generates politically-driven information targeting certain officials and is funded by interests outside of Harris County, focuses nearly exclusively on Ogg. It reported that she accepted over $25,000 of campaign contributions from Ali Davari, who owns strip clubs.[18] In July 2019, Ogg's office dismissed the criminal charges against an alleged local gambling ring and referred the case by former contract employee Amir Mireskandari to the FBI to ensure the matter was reviewed and there was no appearance of a potential conflict of interest. Federal authorities did not ultimately found no wrongdoing and did not pursue any criminal charges. Mireskandari and his wife contributed $14,475 in monetary and in-kind donations to Ogg's campaign between 2016 and 2017. He was also a member of Ogg's campaign finance committee.[19]

Harris County in 2019 enacted reforms that were intended to end the use of cash bail for misdemeanor defendants after a federal judge found the county's bail system to be unconstitutional and a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.[20] During Ogg's tenure as district attorney, she has been a strong critic of releasing persons charged with crimes without sufficiently considering whether or not they pose a threat to the community and the perceived leniency of judges toward people accused of crimes. This stance has placed her in alignment with Moderate Democrats with Republican county commissioners and in opposition to many local Democrats such as Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo. Her office has provided statistics which they claim demonstrates an increase in people charged with violent crimes who are being released from jail due to low bond amounts and then going on to commit more crimes. A monitor nominated by agreeing parties in the lawsuit appointed by the court found that misdemeanor bail reform has been successful in reducing misdemeanor arrests and reducing wasteful county spending.[21]

Born in 1959 in Houston, Ogg attended the University of Texas at Austin and South Texas College of Law Houston, graduating with her BA in journalism in 1981 and her JD in 1986 respectively.[22][23] She and her longtime partner met while studying at South Texas College of Law, and they have one son who attends The University of Texas School of Law.[1] She is the daughter of Texas legislator and Democrat Jack Ogg, and philanthropist Connie Harner Ogg.[22]