With a blindfolded statue of Lady Justice to his left, defense attorney Nico LaHood appears calm and cheerful dressed in his usual white business shirt, crimson tie and black suspenders, a look that's become somewhat of his retrolicious rock-star signature. The San Antonio native who ran for Bexar County District Attorney in 2010 against then three-term, seasoned vet Susan Reed, and lost by a 54 to 46 percent margin, must now face fellow defense attorney
Therese Huntzinger in the Democratic primary in hopes of unseating Reed in November. As we sit in the cozy Law Offices of LaHood and Del Cueto on North Main Avenue, it appears that this gelegenheit for a Romney-like do over has the spunky
LaHood strategically pumped up for yet another high-profile race.
LaHood, now 41, is certainly well-versed in the optics field having seen the justice system as a prosecutor, a defense attorney, a magistrate judge and in 1994, as a defendant himself following a drug bust for ecstasy (many may already know this tidbit by heart).Two years after that, he was back in the arena as a victim’s family member following the murder of his brother Michael.
“We were victimized by my brother's murder,” he recalls with an emotional exactitude that perhaps only time can offer. “I've gone through the justice system with that perspective...waiting for a verdict...waiting for a jury to come back...wanting justice for my family. I don't know any candidate who's run for DA who actually has that perspective...that true balance.”
LaHood, now a father of three, is plain when he says it: “I wish I wasn't the most qualified—but I am.”
He claims Reed, who he says he doesn’t know personally, is disconnected from her constituents. His description of her sounds like a Republican party’s Rapunzel.
“It's the ivory tower, dad,” he says in his rhythmically serpentine delivery. “The DA needs to get down off the ivory tower and get into the community.”
“As a defense attorney, I paint with a fine brush, right? Because you get intimate with your clients and get to know them. And then you tell that story.” LaHood extends the metaphor to his goal as DA: to turn in that fine brush for a broad brush for making policies and making sure those with fine brushes “have a fair canvas to paint on.”
A lot of mud a la Jackson Pollock was slung in the last DA race, much of it around LaHood’s drug arrest, which he later tried to have expunged from his record.
“I'm not being disrespectful but I think we have a DA who's very arrogant. [Someone] who has a sense of entitlement. We need a DA with a spirit of service. I don't think this DA's office has enough compassion for victims.”
Speaking of victims, let’s talk fashion. Why do you wear suspenders? I ask.
“Because I always have. My pop did. See that picture up there?” He points to a framed photograph of his father, County Court Judge Michael LaHood. When asked to describe his relationship with his father, he recounts the day in 1994 when this dad picked him up after his arrest.
“He picks me up from downtown.” His hands press against his face then rub downward. “I was scared, man. I don't want to put it in your paper but I was scared...crudless....okay? And he wouldn't talk to me. He didn't say anything to me.
The ride home was an eternity.
“He's an old school Lebanese guy. I was like, 'Say something to me!' The silence was killing me.”
LaHood’s father is Lebanese. His mother, Hispanic. “Mendiola's my mom's maiden name,” he explains.
“We sit down and I broke the silence. I said, 'Pop. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I embarrassed you....that I dishonored your name.' [Then] he snapped at me. He said, ‘You don't embarrass me, son. You embarrass yourself. You're my boy and I'm always going to love you no matter what. But I want you to remember something and don't ever forget what I'm going to tell you.
The pause that followed was more than deafening.
“It will take you years....years...to build up a good reputation - and one second to mess it up. Don't ever forget that. Am I disappointed in you? Of course, I'm disappointed in you. I didn't raise you like that. But don't ever think that I don't love you. Nothing will make me stop loving you.'”
LaHood nods his head thoughtfully. “I've never forgotten that conversation...and I've taken that love to my children. I refuse to let the evil that entered my life years ago affect my children.”
He considers himself fortunate to have had that parental foundation because he sees so many young people who don't. “[They have] nothing that's anchored them to the floor,” he says. “That's the problem. They feel that no one gives a crap about them. And if they don't think anyone gives a crap about them they're not going to give a crap about themselves.”
LaHood labels a society that says our children are our future simply lip service. “‘Talk is cheap,’ as my pop used to say.”
The elder LaHood has given him many words to live by over the years, but this pastie tape really stuck: “I said, 'Pop, I'm going to make it up to you,’” LaHood remembers saying. His father replied, “'Don't tell me that you're going to make it up to me. Show me that you're going to make it up to me.'”
The two men never spoke of the 1994 incident again.
“I went through the system,” he says. “I got deferred adjudication.” Then his eyes flash recognizing an opp to clarify something. “And no matter how many times Susan Reed says it, and all the people who support her, I'm not a convicted felon. They can say it a hundred times. It doesn't make it true.”
Though now firmly in his past, the arrest of 20 years ago comes up over and over again in his political trajectory. While sometimes successful in recasting it as a character-building blip on an otherwise upstanding youth, it seems shaking it continues to be a challenge.
“[I was someone] who was foolish and went through a season in his life and was given an opportunity to turn his life around.,” he says. “And I did. I'm proud of who I am today. I'm not proud of 20 years ago.”
“There's only one man who walked this earth who was perfect and it wasn't me,” he continues. “So let me bust your bubble there. I'm not claiming I'm perfect.”
Meanwhile, neither is
Huntzinger. His Democratic primary opponent unsurprisingly illustrates both sides of the serviceable spin, according to LaHood. “[Huntzinger’s] told me many times that she's very proud of me that I didn't let a poor choice from 20 years ago define me. [She] told the audience that I was right for the DA's job [in 2010].”
But time can also rip open all wounds.
Huntzinger rehashed his past at the editorial board meeting with the Express-News last month. “For her to use that as a positive for me in our friendship and then try to use it as a jab for political reasons was disappointing,” he says with a shake of his head...and then, a shrug.
He easily admits his belief that Huntzinger is a qualified candidate. “But not more qualified than me,” he says, although he does think
Huntzinger would do a much better job than Reed. “There obviously needs to be new vision in the D.A.'s office. That's an absolute fact.”
LaHood theorizes that an improved justice system shouldn’t be one that merely reacts to crime but one that should be proactive by working with organizations that help children in need, potential high school dropouts and untrained parents. He gives police chief William McManus as an example of someone who is proactive. “He's not even an elected official. The SAPD has Blue Santa. They don't have to do that. They're trying to change the image of what people think of law enforcement." (Fun fact: When LaHood was in Kindergarten, he wanted to be a police officer when he grew up). He says the DA has “zero presence in the community” and accuses Reed of “playing politics and political grandstanding.”
This is the meat of
LaHood’s political yo-yo. (yo-yo: v. The primary messages a political candidate repeats over and over again to the press and to voters).
“As the DA, do I want to come in on the white horse and save the world? No. I can't do that. The authority in the DA's office could be used to work with other organizations that influence people to get involved." LaHood envisions a “coalition with the community. I was raised under the belief that it takes a village to raise a child. I think that applies to this community. An educated community...working together...is a safer community. That's just a fact,” he says. “In my opinion it is.”
“SAPOA asked me this...’If you were the DA, what would you worry about? What would keep you up at night?’”
“If we got it right,” he says with gravity. “I don't want another Michael Morton situation.”
Is there a science to justice? I ask.
After a quick contemplative moment he says, “No, there's no science to justice. It's all in your heart. People aren't pieces of paper.”
He asks if I see the blindfolded woman on his desk then tells me that he keeps her there for a reason. The statue is ornate, and of the many artistic interpretations of Lady Justice, this one is certainly more conventionally attractive. A little hottie, even. “What's on her face?” he asks.
“She's blindfolded,” I reply.
“That's right. Why?”
“Because justice is supposed to be blind.”
LaHood nods. “It's doesn't look at political parties ...or religions --”
“How's she gonna see the piece of paper though?” I ask. His brows arch when he laughs, then fall easily back into place. “She's not supposed to. That's the thing! See the scales of justice? They're balanced. That's what that means. This goes back to the Roman days. If you look at the history of Lady Justice...The sword, because at times [justice] needs to be swift.” Like a tour guide in a Florentine museum, he explains that the book which Lady Justice stands on represents knowledge of the law.
He told a reporter last month that he “fears nothing.” When I ask him if that is still true, his reply is robust and enthusiastic. “Oh, [I fear] nothing! I'm just going to be myself. This is not my first rodeo. I'm not afraid of people attacking me and saying things about me because I know who I am. I'm comfortable in my skin. I'm not intimidated.” He doesn’t want this last statement to “sound cocky” so he says, “I say that very humbly. I know my heart and why I'm doing this.”
LaHood was not this confident in 2010. “I wasn't as comfortable in my skin as I am now,” he says. “Four years makes a big difference.”
As the man before me is a religious one, I ask him what he asks for when he prays.
“That's a good question and I'm happy to share it. I ask, 'Where do I walk in your plan for me?'”
LaHood talked himself in and out of running again several times because he was concerned about his kids. But not in a Chelsea Clintonian-bashing way. “My middle child deals with some developmental issues...for now....I say for now because I'm faithful that he's going to be fine.”
And his prayers extend to the players in this very campaign.
LaHood prays for Reed.
“I think she's a very unhappy person. I do. And I pray for her everyday ,believe it or not. People think I'm crazy but I don't care,” he says.
Why do you pray for her?
“Because I feel sorry for people who are unhappy. I know what it's like to be unhappy. I was miserable after my brother passed away. I was angry at the world.”
When I ask him how Michael’s death affected him, he instead focuses on the effect it had on his parents.
“My brother was taken from us...in my driveway,” he says. “I walked outside and I saw my pop cry for the first time in front of me. But what do you do when your son's lying in your driveway? My mom cried in a way that only a mom can cry. I'll never forget the way she cried that night.”
When I tell him that I hope to get an interview in with the DA before the election, he says, “Give me your opinion when you meet her.”
LaHood doesn’t miss a beat when I ask him if he has any pet peeves.
“Hypocrisy,” he says with a soft sneer. “When I ask you to do something that I won't do myself.”
And he has friends in tall places. Players from the San Antonio Spurs have come out to support him publically. Would you run for higher office? I ask.“I don't know.” His tone is indifferent. “I'm not thinking about it.”
“This is my wife. Do you mind if I get this? She just called twice,” he says.. When he speaks to her I get a sense of what he meant when he told me that she speaks in Spanish to him and he replies in English. Davida, his wife of eight years, was born in California but raised in Mexico.
Huge, slow-moving images of the earth from space hypnotize me from the screensaver on his monitor.
“I'm fascinated by space.” I'm fascinated by the fact that we live in the milky way and that's our galaxy....[that] there are a hundred and sixty billion other galaxies out there. We haven't even explored our own galaxy.”
A boyish ardor falls over his face. “If you think about it we are nothing but a blue dot of sand....in this whole big thing...obviously we are chosen and we have a purpose.”
It is rather humbling, I reply.
“I'm humbled by my life everyday. I wake up every morning knowing that we are all just a phone call away from a life-changing experience.” Then he gets up and starts to make a protein shake. “That knowledge keeps me grounded and rooted.”
I'm sure the suspenders help, too.
