Dallas County district attorney is one of the most consequential local offices up for election this November.
This person will manage an office with approximately 600 employees, about half of them attorneys. The district attorney decides what prosecutions to prioritize. His or her philosophy on criminal justice guides how staffers prosecute cases and how they balance punishment with rehabilitation pathways. The DA’s leadership also sets the tone for how prosecutors work with police and other law enforcement partners.
Without a Republican challenger, Democratic nominee Amber Givens had a clear path to office. But in August, longtime Dallas attorney Eric Reed launched a campaign as a write-in candidate. Unfortunately for voters, there are no good choices in this race. We cannot recommend either candidate.
Givens, a former state district judge, defeated incumbent John Creuzot in a primary upset. Creuzot has been a competent manager of the DA’s office, but voters overwhelmingly chose Givens despite her poor judicial track record.
Givens cast herself as the more progressive candidate. At the time of the primary election, she was appealing sanctions by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct based on allegations that she had let a staffer take her place in a bond-reduction hearing and that she had taken actions against two defendants despite being recused from their cases. A special court of review said the evidence portrayed Givens as “polarizing” but tossed the sanctions in July, ruling that the state commission had failed to prove the charges.
Setting this matter aside, Givens’ record as a judge is troubling.
During the decade she served as a district judge in Dallas County, she consistently ranked as the lowest-rated criminal district court judge in the Dallas Bar Association’s biennial judicial evaluation poll. In the most recent poll in 2025, 89% of survey respondents agreed that her temperament “needs improvement.”
In 2024, Givens made headlines for scheduling more than 100 trials in her court on the same day. Alarmed prosecutors and defense attorneys complained about having to rush preparation for the trials with defendants and victims hanging in the balance. Givens framed it as an effort to improve efficiency, but what it did was cement concerns about her ability to manage her docket.
Givens didn’t respond to invitations to attend our candidate interview.
Reed, the write-in candidate, is a solo practitioner with experience in state, federal, tribal and military courts. He served as a Dallas County prosecutor in the 1990s and as a federal special prosecutor and a tribal-court prosecutor before that.
Reed shares our concerns about Givens’ performance, but he failed to convince us that he is prepared to lead the DA’s office. In an interview with us, he gave meandering answers to our questions about his managerial experience and policy ideas. Reed couldn’t clearly explain how he would run the office and what he might do differently than the incumbent.
It’s too bad that Republicans failed to put forth a candidate in the primary who might have posed a serious challenge to Givens. Now the best we can hope for is that whoever wins will rise to the occasion.