Despite the bad publicity, the two judges seemed untouchable, each having been reelected multiple times. But in 2018, pressures began to mount. The Chronicle reported that the Justice Department was probing racial disparities in sentencing and the pay-to-play practices in Harris County’s juvenile courts, and that federal authorities were asking about specific judges by name. That fall, as part of a “blue wave” in an increasingly diverse Harris County, every single one of the fifty-nine Republican judges up for reelection—including Phillips, Devlin, and the third juvenile court judge, Michael
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