By Rob Kepple
TDCAF & TDCAA Executive Director in Austin
I write to honor the second executive director of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association (TDCAA), Michael J. McCormick, who passed away in July at the age of 78.
Judge McCormick was hired on at TDCAA by Dain Whitworth in 1972. His first major assignment: to help a group of Texas prosecutors write a new penal code for the legislature to consider in 1973. (Read more about that revision of the Penal Code at www.tdcaa.com/journal/links-to-the-past-lest-we-forget and www.tdcaa.com/journal/in-memory-of-carol-vance.)
In 1976, Dain left for private practice, and Judge McCormick took the wheel at TDCAA. It was a time of remarkable growth for the association, as grant funding was becoming available to help professionalize prosecution in Texas and across the country. Even after he left TDCAA in 1980 to become a judge on the Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA), his interest in prosecutor and judicial education was keen. When, in 1993, the Texas Supreme Court showed little interest in managing judicial and criminal lawyer training grants, Judge McCormick stepped in and put the CCA in charge of the grant program. Fast forward to today as the CCA, under the leadership of Judge Barbara Hervey, continues to manage the grants that bring judges, prosecutors, and criminal defense attorneys excellent training.
Judge McCormick’s family has asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made in his honor to the Texas District and County Attorneys Foundation at www.tdcaf.org. (Done!) He will be deeply missed, but his legacy in so many areas, including his support of TDCAA, lives on.