Veteran Austin defense attorney and former judge Charlie Baird was booked into the Travis County Jail early Wednesday and charged with driving while intoxicated, according to jail records.
Records show Baird, 71, was booked at 12:59 a.m. He was released on a $3,000 bond at about 9:30 a.m., he told the American-Statesman in a phone interview.
“I just had too much to drink at my crawfish eatery,” Baird said. “Everyone’s safe, no one got hurt and we’re just going to go through the process from here.”
Baird said an Austin police officer pulled him over after he had dinner at Crawfish ATX in South Austin. He said he declined to provide a breath sample and that a blood sample was taken to test his blood alcohol level. He said he has not yet received the results.
Baird said he has not decided whether he will represent himself in the case.
Baird is a longtime figure in Texas criminal law. He served on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal court, from 1991 to 1999, and later as judge of the 299th Criminal District Court in Travis County from 2006 to 2010. Since leaving the bench, he has worked as a criminal defense attorney in Austin and has frequently been cited in local news coverage as a legal analyst and critic of court system practices.
During his time as a trial judge, Baird was known for emphasizing rehabilitation and alternative sentencing approaches, as well as for presiding over proceedings that led to the posthumous exoneration of Tim Cole.