Carl Reynolds
A bright light in the criminal justice arena
Carl Reynolds dedicates
his career to justice policy
Carl Reynolds (M.P.Aff./J.D.1985) is one of the state’s most influential experts on criminal justice policy. Well known by national and state leaders for his work, collaborative style and innovative thinking, Reynolds was honored in May by the Central Texas Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration.
LBJ School Adjunct Professor Michele Deitch, who introduced Reynolds prior to his acceptance of the Public Administrator of the Year Award, described him as the “quintessential public servant” and as “one of the brightest lights in the criminal justice field at a national level.”
“Since graduating with a joint degree from the UT Law School and the LBJ School, his career has been a tour through the executive, legislative and judicial branches of state government,” she said.
In April, Reynolds joined the Texas Office of Court Administration (OCA) after having spent eight years as general counsel for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. In his new job, Reynolds wears two hats—he is OCA administrative director and executive director of the Texas Judicial Council, the policymaking body for the state judiciary. A state agency, OCA provides administrative and technical assistance to all the courts and operates under the direction of Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson. Among other services, OCA provides staff support for the Texas Judicial Council, the Judicial Committee on Information Technology, the Texas Task Force on Indigent Defense, the Court Reporters Certification Board, and other judicial boards and commissions.
Outside the courtroom of the Supreme Court of Texas, Carl Reynolds (left) chats with Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson before a meeting of the presiding judges of the nine administrative judicial regions. |
In describing his goals for his new job, Reynolds said he would like to help Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson accomplish “mutual goals within the Texas judiciary.” Specifically, Reynolds said he hopes to build on the sucess achieved by the judiciary in the 2005 special legislative session in obtaining adequate compensation for judges and their employees, improve courthouse and personal judicial security, and implement reforms to what he described as the “Byzantine and confusing jurisdictional provisions for Texas courts.”
“With regard to OCA in particular, I would like to reaffirm and build on our core ‘court administration’ mission, which has been somewhat diluted by various mandates over the years,” he said.
Reflecting on his career, Reynolds said that his interest in the public sector goes back to his undergraduate college days, when he had the opportunity to craft his own interdisciplinary major in public policy and administration in an honors program at the University of Cincinnati. Although his climb up the career ladder has been steady, there have been challenges. Among them is what he describes as a critical skill in every person’s professional and personal toolkit—the ability to know how to leverage others to support one’s agenda.
“It can take a long time and a lot of experience before you are consistently successful at achieving the things you set out to achieve by positively influencing other people,” he said.
Looking at Reynolds accomplishments, there is a sense that he conquered this particular challenge a long time ago. In his role as TDCJ general counsel from 1997 until April 2005, Reynolds advised agency leaders about law and policy issues, helped draft and review legislation affecting the agency, and oversaw litigation against an agency that helps govern probation, prisons and parole supervision for felony offenders.
In his current position, Carl Reynolds wears two hats—he is the administrative director of the Texas Office of Court Administration and executive director of the Texas Judicial Council. |
Among his most important accomplishments in this job was his contribution to the effort to successfully steer the agency through the final stages of the Ruiz v. Estelle class action litigation that reformed conditions in the Texas prison system. During his tenure with TDCJ, Reynolds also strengthened the collaboration between his office and the Office of Attorney General, which helped in the management of hundreds of lawsuits filed against TDCJ and its employees.
“Carl possesses the ability to look at an issue from several sides; consider the various consequences associated with decisions; consider the legal, moral and ethical ramifications; and then provide the executive director and executive staff with a recommendation,” said TDCJ Executive Director Gary Johnson.
Reynolds developed these attributes early in his career. After graduating from the LBJ School and the Law School in 1985 he became a briefing attorney for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, and by 1987 he was serving as general counsel for the Texas Senate Committee on Criminal Justice. In this job, he was the primary staff architect of the legislation that consolidated three major state agencies into the TDCJ umbrella. This consolidation combined the prison, probation and parole functions into one agency, and in 1990 Reynolds served as the first general counsel for the newly consolidated agency. A year later, he switched gears, becoming the staff director for the Texas Senate Redistricting Committee, where he helped manage a controversial redistricting process.
“I have focused on criminal justice policy virtually my whole career,” Reynolds said. “Redistricting was an educational but temporary diversion.”
Later, as the executive director of the Texas Punishment Standards Commission, a 25-member blue-ribbon commission charged with reforming sentencing policy in Texas, Reynolds led an effort to rewrite the state’s penal code and code of criminal procedure. His efforts resulted in a new system in which the limited space in the state’s prison system was prioritized to hold the most serious inmates while alternative options were developed for minor offenders.
“Carl and I came to know each other in 1991, when we began working together closely as senior staff for the Texas Punishment Standards Commission,” Deitch recalled. “I learned a tremendous amount from watching Carl work. I witnessed the trust that policymakers from both parties have in him as well as his ability to work well and collaboratively with practitioners from all stakeholder groups. He has an incredible ability to say what he thinks without alienating those who disagree with him.”
From 1993 to 1997, during a time of unprecedented growth and expansion of the prison system, Reynolds worked as general counsel for the Texas Board of Criminal Justice. In this position, he advised the governing board and helped the agency and board develop new processes, implement accountability measures and restructure the board’s committee structure.
While most of his career has been closely linked to his law degree, his new assignment with OCA will bring his training in public affairs to the forefront. In talking about his training at the LBJ School, Reynolds said that two experiences stand out—an ethics seminar with Professor Barbara Jordan, who was “larger than life,” and a policy research project directed by Professor Lodis Rhodes, “who gave me lasting guidance on the basic lenses through which any public policy issued must be analyzed.”
“I believe the LBJ program gives someone like me a better grasp on policy analysis and the ability to critically evaluate technical material such as budget detail and program evaluations,” he said.
by María de la Luz Martínez
Related Links
Michele Deitch named Soros Senior Justice Fellow for work on prison reform
© Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs
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Austin, TX 78713-8925
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12 July 2005
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