Former Williamson County Attorney Jana Duty. Courtesy photo
Former Williamson County District Attorney Jana Duty has died. She was 54.
Her former First Assistant District Attorney, Mark Brunner, said that Duty had a kind heart and showed empathy to the crime victims and witnesses with whom she interacted, and her own employees.
“She had just a warmth and energy in her interpersonal dealings. She’d remember the names of your kids and the sports they are in and had an uncanny knack to connect with people. It was always very refreshing,” he said.
Full details of Duty’s death haven’t yet emerged.
According to the Rockport Police Department, officers found Duty when they responded to a call about a deceased person at 8:20 a.m. April 24 at the Oak Bay Condos in Rockport Country Club Estates. The Texas Rangers and Rockport police are investigating, but so far, haven’t found “any indication of criminal conduct.”
Rockport interim Police Chief Fred Fletcher said police received a report about a shot fired at the condominium, according to the Austin American-Statesman. The paper reported that Duty and her husband purchased a Rockport condo in July 2018.
"We are not sharing any more details about the incident out of sensitivity to the family’s wishes and the ongoing investigation," Fletcher wrote in an email.
Brunner recalled that Duty was a zealous advocate and tenacious fighter as a lawyer—a trait which occasionally harmed her, he noted.
“Sometimes she didn’t know when to back down, and that’s a sign of tenaciousness and endearing. It’s what you want in a public official sometimes, and prosecutor sometimes. It’s what you want in a lawyer: a fighter,” said Brunner, now a Georgetown criminal law solo practitioner.
The tenacious trait did harm her in 2015 when a visiting judge found her in contempt of court and sentenced her to 10 days in jail and a $500 fine for violating a gag order in a capital murder case, and for disrespecting a local judge. The incident later brought an attorney-discipline case and a license suspension for Duty. She also lost her Republican Primary reelection bid in 2016 to current Williamson County DA Shawn Dick.
But Brunner said Duty’s zealousness also worked to her good, as she shook up Williamson County’s political system to win office to both positions she held there. First, she won election in 2004 to become Williamson County Attorney against a very popular incumbent and then served two terms.
Then she repeated the pattern in 2012 when she ran and won against longtime former DA John Bradley. Duty’s major campaign issue was Bradley’s six-year fight against DNA testing in the case of Michael Morton, who spent more than 24 years in prison after he was wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife. Morton eventually won the DNA test, and it exonerated him of the crime and located the real killer, who had killed again two years after Morton’s wife died.
Brunner said that when Duty took over the DA’s office, she was passionate about examining cold cases. She kept a handwritten list of unsolved murder cases in Williamson County and was dedicated to solving them.
“It was, ‘What can I do for these families to try to bring a sense of justice?' The handwritten list of cold cases stayed on her desk every day. It was within (arm's) reach,” Brunner said.
Although a large volume of cases came through the office, Duty refused to view them as just a number. Instead, she encouraged her employees to “acknowledge the human factor in the cases,” Brunner said. When the office handled major cases, and victims and their families stayed late while waiting for a jury to return a verdict, Duty would stay and wait with them.
“It was genuine,” he said. “She had a kind heart.”