For 36 years, Dallas County’s district attorney’s office belonged to Henry Wade, whose problematic prosecutorial machinery secured the lowest acquittal rate in the country while sending dozens of innocent people— disproportionately Black—to prison. That the same office will soon be led by Amber Givens, a Black woman raised by a single mother in St. Louis who took out a second mortgage so her daughter could attend law school, represents something more seismic than a primary upset. “First, I just have to give all glory to God,” Givens said after defeating two-term incumbent John Creuzot by roughly 19,000 votes. “This is not something that I did.”
The lineage of Black leadership in the office is short and turbulent. Craig Watkins broke the barrier in 2007 as the first Black DA in all of Texas, creating the nation’s first Conviction Integrity Unit and freeing 35 wrongfully convicted people before losing re-election in 2014. “He was all about restoring credibility that law enforcement can work for everyone,” Governing magazine wrote of Watkins, who died suddenly in December 2023 at 56. Faith Johnson followed in 2016 as the first Black woman to serve. But she was appointed by Governor Abbott, a Republican, and lost to Creuzot in 2018. “I am a woman of integrity, people,” Johnson notably said at her swearing-in.
Givens arrives carrying both historic weight and considerable baggage that will follow her going forward. The Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct publicly reprimanded her for allowing a staff member to impersonate her during a 2021 Zoom hearing and for mistreating attorneys. “She was more interested in herself than serving justice,” defense attorney Amanda Branan told the Texas Observer. Givens has called the sanctions “politically motivated” and is appealing them. With no Republican on the November ballot, she is the presumptive next DA.
Givens inherits an office built by Wade, reformed by Watkins, and now bracing for what many inside the courthouse suspect will be a sweeping housecleaning. “Having a robust intake department is going to address a lot of those issues,” she told CBS Texas, “with people sitting in jail that should have never been arrested.”