Karen Gleason
During its last meeting of 2020, Val Verde County Commissioners Court honored former Val Verde County Attorney Ana Markowski Smith for her 28 years of service.
County Judge Lewis G. Owens Jr. presented Smith with a plaque, and he and the county commissioners thanked her for her service. Smith lost her re-election bid to Del Rio attorney David Martinez, her former assistant, who has been sworn in as the new county attorney.
Smith, in a recent telephone interview with the 830 Times, said she is still sad about losing the election, she felt it was the right time for her to leave.
Smith said she decided to seek the office of county attorney 28 years ago because “at the time I believed the county attorney’s office desperately needed a change.”
“One of my focuses when I became county attorney, and one of the things I continued to focus on during my tenure, was family violence cases. They were not filing protective orders, even though they had the authority to do so. The other thing was consistency in how cases were prosecuted and consistency in how elected officials were represented,” Smith said.
She said believed she accomplished her priorities during her time as county attorney.
“I think one thing would be, of course, consistency in the way the office provides services, transparency in how the office is managed, regardless of party affiliation. That has always been very important to me, because party affiliation has caused a lot of discord in local government,” she said.
In terms of the criminal cases, Smith said she wanted to ensure justice was served.
“Sometimes that meant the role of prosecutor was also the role of defense attorney. In misdemeanor cases, not all defendants have attorneys, so we had a lot of one-on-one with defendants who didn’t know their rights, and if you’re pursuing justice, you’re not going to take advantage of someone who doesn’t know the law,” Smith said.
“One thing that’s very, very important is making sure they’re pleading guilty because they are guilty and for no other reason. Sometimes you would hear them say, ‘Oh, I want to get it over with, so I’ll just plead guilty,’ and I would never accept a plea under those circumstances,” she added.
Smith said much of the energy in the office was dealing with family violence cases and their fallout.
“The family violence issues were never-ending. That was something that required a lot of education, and still requires a lot of education, for people involved in the system. The mindset of an abused individual, to understand the mystery of why people return to an abuser, not recognizing that a lot of times it’s for financial reasons or the affection they feel for the perpetrator, honestly believing that person is going to change, and the shame, letting people know that someone took advantage of them. That dynamic is still hard for people to understand, and people tend to blame the victim for going back,” she added.
Smith said the staff in her office was “trained to recognize those dynamics” and to handle victims with dignity.
Smith said she is grateful for her time as county attorney.
“I believed that being the county attorney was more of a calling than anything else. I considered myself an elected official, a politician. It was just important to me that my staff understood what the priorities were and that they were trained, so that way they weren’t just following instructions. They were acting on instinct and training when they responded to the public, always courteous. They had a lot more patience than I did,” Smith said.
“They truly, truly understand the importance that justice is served. It’s not about winning cases, and they understood that victims require a lot of patience. I think, probably, that’s my proudest accomplishment,” she added.
Smith said she plans to enjoy “semi-retirement” and will continue working in the community.
“I will retire in terms of the county system, and so that’s going to be nice, but I have projects that I’m going to be working on. I will be working with the Texas Humane Legislative Network, which is an organization that advocates for state laws that protect the rights of animals, and that’s been a big honor, to work with that organization,” Smith said.
Smith said she also plans to work with Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, in a program for attorneys in which they are paid a reduced fee to represent low-income litigants in divorces.
“So basically, I’m going to have a limited practice, pursuing the same things that I did as a county attorney, but on a limited basis, for low-income persons,” she added.
Smith said she also hopes to keep the local community up-to-date on information about the COVID-19 pandemic.
