|
 District Judge Julie Kocurek, 51, was in serious but stable
condition at a local hospital shortly past midnight (0600 GMT),
police said.
Kocurek was shot in front of witnesses outside her home in an
upscale neighborhood near downtown Austin, the state capital, at
around 10:15 p.m. on Friday, police said.
It's not known whether the shooting was related to her work as the
presiding judge of the 390th District Court in Travis County, where
Austin is located.
Police said her injuries were not life-threatening and that no one
else was injured in the attack.
Calls and emails to the Austin police for further details were not
immediately returned on Saturday.
 Kocurek is a former prosecutor who was appointed to her position in
1999 by then Republican Governor George W. Bush. In 2006, she
switched her affiliation to the Democratic Party.
Among her early cases was the high-profile capital murder trial of
Celeste Beard Johnson, who is serving a life sentence for the
killing of her millionaire husband, Steven Beard, in 1999.
Kocurek was initially tapped to preside over the 2014 felony case
involving former Texas Governor Rick Perry, in which he was charged
with abuse of power, but she recused herself. Perry was lieutenant
governor when Bush appointed Kocurek to the bench. That case is
still pending.
[to top of second column] |
A colleague, District Judge David Wahlberg, told the Austin
American-Statesman newspaper the shooting was "shocking."
"Judge Kocurek is a wonderful woman," he said. "It's unfathomable to
think that anyone would be angry with her."
(Reporting by Joseph Ax in New York and Karen Brooks in Austin;
Editing by Alan Crosby)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
