Comal County
Comal County Criminal District Attorney
A Criminal District Attorney is a statutorily created office that is legally bound to not only handle all criminal matters for the designated county but also all civil matters related to representation of the county, county officials, and all associated matters. The Texas Constitution provides for the office of County Attorney in each county.
However, the legislature may abolish the office of County Attorney by establishing a Criminal District Attorney for such a county.This legislative change took place in Comal County in 1997.Prior to this, Comal County had a County Attorney and a District Attorney.
The statutory duties of a Criminal District Attorney include the following:
- Represent the State of Texas and victims of crimes in all criminal cases in the District Courts, County Courts-at-Law, and Justice Courts and in appeals therefrom.
- Represent the best interests of our children in Child Protective Services cases.
- Represent the victims of domestic abuse by obtaining protective orders against abusive family members.
- Represent the State of Texas and victims of crimes in ensuring that justice is rendered for juveniles accused of criminal offenses.
- Provide County Officials with written opinions or advice relating to the official duties of that official.
Criminal District Attorney: Jennifer Tharp
Chief Civil Prosecutor: Jessica Frazier
Chief Felony Prosecutor: Sammy McCrary
Chief Misdemeanor Prosecutor: Jennifer Barry
Click here to request Information from the CDA's Office
I concur with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sutherland's philosophy concerning the role of a prosecutor:
"The [prosecutor] is the representative not of an ordinary party to a controversy, but of a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all; and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. As such, he is in a peculiar and very definite sense the servant of the law, the twofold aim of which is that guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor – indeed, he should do so. But, while he may strike hard blows, he is not at liberty to strike foul ones. It is as much his duty to refrain from improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction as it is to use every legitimate means to bring about a just one."
Justice Sutherland in Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78 (1935)