Both candidates vying to become Harris County’s next district attorney cut their teeth as prosecutors at the agency they now seek to lead.
Both men cite that experience in their campaigns. The candidates’ personnel files and other internal office records obtained by the Landing, however, map out two very different tenures as Harris County prosecutors and shed light on their reasons for leaving the office.
Teare resigned months before announcing a challenge to the incumbent district attorney. Simons told the Landing he left because he was “bullied” by other prosecutors and not promoted quickly enough.
Shortly before his departure, Simons saw his prosecutorial ethics called into question twice. In one instance, a junior prosecutor reported Simons had told her to lie to a defense attorney to force a plea deal. Around the same time, a supervisor recorded grave concerns about Simons’ judgment.
“I cannot trust Dan to seek justice in every case,” the supervisor wrote.
A pair of experts contacted by the Landing highlighted the importance of ethical standards for prosecutors.
“A prosecutor’s primary duty is to seek justice rather than convict,” said Bob Schuwerk, professor emeritus at the University of Houston Law Center. “Having someone accused of violating that duty is very serious to me… It’s very important that high standards of ethics start at the top of the office.”
Neither Simons nor Teare has held elected office, though Simons unsuccessfully ran for judge in two Harris County misdemeanor courts in 2018 and 2022.
“Because of prosecutors’ unique role in the justice system, they are held to a very high ethical standard,” said Laura Popps, a lawyer who has advised the State Bar of Texas on disciplinary cases involving prosecutorial misconduct. “Anything that could be seen as dishonest conduct in the course of a prosecutor’s duties, or violating the defendant’s rights… would be examples of conduct that would call into question a prosecutor’s integrity and should be carefully evaluated.”
Simons’ service
Simons’ tenure at the district attorney’s office began in 2013, shortly after he graduated from law school, and ended in 2017, when he left to enter private practice. By then, he had reached the rank of misdemeanor supervisor, with experience in some felony prosecutions.
During that time, Simons received praise for his work, including high marks by a supervisor who recommended him for a promotion in his final performance review.
Other prosecutors, however, raised concerns about Simons twice in late 2016. One allegation came from his supervisor.
“Dan appears to make some decisions based on a desire to ‘win’ rather than a desire to seek justice,” wrote Luis Batarse in Simons’ second-to-last performance review. Batarse, who now works for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Houston, declined to comment for this article.
Batarse’s concerns centered around Simons’ handling of a misdemeanor case in which a drunk driver rear-ended an elderly woman’s car. Because the woman underwent surgery following the crash, Simons proposed the case be refiled under a more serious charge of intoxication assault.
Batarse wrote that his own review of the evidence revealed Simons had omitted key information in his presentation of the case, including the victim’s refusal of an ambulance to go to the hospital, and medical records showing she had pre-existing ailments. Those factors raised doubt that the crash caused serious bodily injury, Batarse wrote.
According to the review, Simons did not address his supervisor’s concerns as instructed. Batarse also noted that Simons later failed to relay the case’s weaknesses to another prosecutor, who did refile based on Simons’ representation.
“His presentation of the facts (was) selective at best, or intentionally misleading at worst,” Batarse wrote. “It was clear that he either disregarded what I asked him to do or that he re-presented the case in a manner specifically intended to allow him to refile… This behavior is disconcerting and consistent with a desire to prosecute indiscriminately rather than to seek justice.”
At the time, Simons defended himself against the review, arguing Batarse was unfairly attacking him.
“I did not join this office to win the popularity contest,” Simons wrote in a memo after he received the review in 2016. “I joined to seek justice and do what was right, even if it caused a backlash from fellow prosecutors.”
Around the same time, in late 2016, another prosecutor reported Simons had directed her to lie to a defense attorney, according to a disciplinary memo in Simons’ personnel file.
The prosecutor, who declined to comment for this story, alleged Simons instructed her to tell a defense attorney that the victim in a case was prepared to testify at trial, which was not accurate. The lie could have led the defendant to agree to an unfair plea deal, the memo stated.
Simons denied the accusation, and a disciplinary committee later found there was insufficient evidence to determine whether he had engaged in misconduct. Ultimately, the committee ordered Simons to undergo training on prosecutorial ethics.
The case later went to trial and the defendant was found not guilty, according to the personnel file.
Simons resigned months later in May 2017. On an exit interview form, he attributed his decision to “supervisor issues,” a “hostile work environment,” and a failure to appropriately promote him.
In an interview Monday, Simons described the two allegations as examples of “bullying” and representative of a broken culture within the office that he has promised to fix.
Simons said the two disciplinary actions occurring within months of each other was not coincidental.
“Nobody should ever be subjected to this in the (district attorney’s) office,” Simons said. “I don’t know if the intent was to run me off… but they clearly picked the wrong person because I’ve been fighting my entire life, and I know how to stand up to bullying.”
Teare’s tenure
Teare worked two stints at the district attorney’s office and practiced personal injury law in the interim. When he began his career at the office in 2005, he was just an intern. By the time he left in 2023, he had attained the position of division chief with supervisory duties over the vehicular crimes division and several felony courts.
Overall, Teare’s personnel file paints a picture of an accomplished prosecutor who was well-liked, even celebrated, by supervisors and subordinates.
“Sean represents the (district attorney’s) office exceedingly well and at a high level, and he is as dedicated as they come,” a supervisor wrote in 2021. “His people respect and look up to him and his knowledge, positivity and determination make the Trial Bureau and its staff stronger and better.”
Teare resigned from the office in February 2023 to challenge incumbent district attorney, Kim Ogg, in March’s Democratic primary. Ogg hired Teare in 2017. Teare easily won the primary.
In December 2023, however, ten months after his departure and with the primary race in full swing, senior agency staff inserted a lengthy memo into Teare’s personnel file.
The memo, authored by the district attorney’s office’s human resources director with input from David Mitcham, one of Ogg’s senior deputies, accused Teare of violating office policy by offering an “aberrant, improper” pre-trial intervention agreement to a defendant charged with felony failure to stop and render aid to a man he struck and killed with his vehicle.
According to the memo, Teare finalized the pre-trial intervention agreement, a type of diversion that can end with the defendant’s charges dismissed, on his last day as an assistant district attorney. The memo alleges he did so without approval from Ogg, mandatory for such agreements in cases involving a death, and without appropriately involving the victim’s mother or the junior prosecutor assigned to the case.
Teare denied any impropriety, saying the memo misrepresented office practice and policy to undermine him politically during a hotly contested primary race.
“There are more death cases I have approved (where) we have entered into pretrial intervention agreements with no complaints from the administration,” Teare said.
Teare pointed out that after the district attorney’s office revoked the defendant’s pretrial intervention agreement, the case ended with a deferred adjudication — another form of probation that can end in charges being sealed.
“The current administration put this mother … through another calendar year of hope and pain to have the final outcome be a deferred adjudication as opposed to a pretrial diversion,” Teare said. “There’s no marked difference between the two outcomes other than more pain for that mother who lost her only son.”
Chip Lewis, the defendant’s lawyer, agreed, calling the office’s characterization of Teare’s actions “inaccurate.”
“(The defendant’s) journey through the criminal justice system has been marred by politics,” he said in a statement. “It is quite unfortunate that he became a pawn of a political agenda.”
In a statement, Joe Stinebaker, communications director for the district attorney’s office, denied the memo was politically motivated. He acknowledged that adding the memo to Teare’s personnel file months after his departure was unusual — but said circumstances justified the decision.
“This incident was unprecedented in that it occurred in the last few hours of Mr. Teare’s very last day without the knowledge or permission of any of his supervisors,” said Stinebaker. “Mr. Teare’s actions were not discovered by the administration until after he had left the (district attorney’s) office permanently.”
Stinebaker added that Teare did not receive an opportunity to respond to the memo since he was “no longer an employee of the office.”
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