Honors

Listed, not characterized. Each line links to the document that records it.

Honors

1. 2026Presidential Award, presented by the association’s president, Nicole DeBorde Hochglaube, at the 39th Annual Rusty Duncan Advanced Criminal Law Course, San Antonio, June 18, 2026. Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. source
   

   Photographs and video to be added

2. 2024Fifty years in the practice of law. Admitted April 29, 1974; recognized with the class of 1974 at the State Bar of Texas annual meeting in June 2024. State Bar of Texas. source
   

   Photographs and video to be added

3. 2023Length of Service Award, twenty years. Texas Tech University. source
4. 2023The Professor Pat Metze Criminal Defense Endowed Scholarship, established in his name by Jacob and Hilary Stidham for a third-year student in the Criminal Defense Clinic. Texas Tech University School of Law. source
5. 2022President’s Excellence in Engaged Scholarship Award, in the category Excellence in Engaged Service, to the School of Law’s Clinical Programs. Texas Tech University. source
6. 2021President’s Award, for service to the association. Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. source
7. 2020Criminal Law Association Professor of the Year. Texas Tech University School of Law. source
8. 2019 to 2020Annual theme, “Justice,” awarded with Professor Jill Patterson of the English Department, with a budget for lectures, films, and podcasts. The Humanities Center at Texas Tech. source
9. 2017Michael K. Moore Award, one of the State Bar’s two annual indigent defense awards. State Bar of Texas. source
10. 2015Texas Gideon Recognition Program Award, to Dickens County and Texas Tech University School of Law for establishing the Caprock Regional Public Defender Office. Texas Indigent Defense Commission. source
11. 2013Spencer A. Wells Award for Creativity in Teaching, a university-wide award. Texas Tech University. source
12. 2013Teaching Academy Departmental Excellence in Teaching Award, to the Criminal Clinical Program he directed. The $25,000 prize was presented to him at the Faculty Honors Convocation. Texas Tech University. source

Appointments and offices

1. 2026Assistant Public Defender, High Plains Regional Public Defender Office, Plainview, representing indigent clients in the rural counties of West Texas. source
2. Former board member and Secretary, Lubbock Area Bar Association. Former member, Criminal Justice Council, and former board member, Criminal Law Section, State Bar of Texas. source
3. Life Fellow, Texas Bar Foundation. Member, Texas Bar College and the Pro Bono College of the State Bar of Texas. source
4. 2020 to 2022Texas Tech University Institutional Review Board; Rhodes, Marshall and Truman Scholarship selection committee. source
5. 2019Counsel of record on the amicus brief of the Republic of Argentina and other governments of the Americas in Saldaño v. Davis, Supreme Court of the United States. source
6. 2016Established the Texas Tech School of Law Innocence Clinic, with the Innocence Project of Texas. source
7. 2014 to 2017Texas Tech University Faculty Senate. source
8. 2012Promoted to Professor of Law, with tenure. source
9. 2010Under his leadership, the School of Law was selected to house the Caprock Regional Public Defender Office. source
10. 2010Created the Capital Punishment Clinic, placing students with the Regional Public Defender for Capital Cases. source
11. 2008Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Criminal Defense Clinics, Texas Tech University School of Law, after giving up his private practice. source
12. 2008 to 2014Board of Directors, Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. source
13. Past President and Director, Lubbock Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. source
14. Before 2008One of fourteen attorneys qualified for appointment as first chair in capital murder cases across the forty-five counties of the Ninth Administrative Judicial Region. source
15. Before 2007Appointed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to represent two men on death row on their state writs of habeas corpus. source
16. 1993Admitted to practice before the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. source
17. 1974Admitted to the State Bar of Texas, April 29, 1974. source