A worrisome patch of black speckles in Judge Josh Hill’s chambers gives him pause.
The judge in the 232nd District Court pointed out what he believes to be mold lurking above his paper towel dispenser.
Other judges — on different floors at the 1201 Franklin courthouse — have had similar issues and voiced concerns about the air quality in the building. The bathroom for Judge Kelli Johnson in the 178th has been redone twice since 2019 because of mold, she said. And on the 20th floor, water has been dripping from the ceiling of at least two courtrooms this week and the last.
The black mold in the bathroom at Judge Josh Hill's courthouse chambers has been there since at least 2019, when he moved into the 16th floor.
Water drips into a 20th floor courtroom at the Harris County Criminal Justice Court on Monday, Aug. 15, 2022 in Houston.
Despite swaths of improvements and ongoing work at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center since Hurricane Harvey, nothing at the cramped skyscraper is typical.
“We’re still working in an active construction zone,” said Hill, who recounted exhaustive moments of loud noises reverberating up and down the building’s elevator shafts. “It’s distracting to the jurors and the witnesses.”
Crews working on a ceiling ventilator on the first floor of the Harris County Criminal Justice Center Monday, Aug. 22, 2022, in Houston.
The 2018-electee was a defense attorney when Hurricane Harvey damage forced his predecessors and county employees from the courthouse. Criminal dockets resumed later but scattered at the civil courthouse and other county buildings, many not designed to house an ecosystem of clerks, defendants, bailiffs, lawyers and judges.
According to a county-government report of Harvey’s impact on the courthouse, floodwater filled the basement and first floor during the 2017 storm. What court personnel remained in the building watched as water rained down throughout the building from ruptured pipes. Those people, forced to evacuate when the sewer backed up, escaped by opening a flood gate — an act that caused more water to come spilling in. The neighboring Jury Assembly Building filled with water and was gutted.
The fallout has prompted years of work on an estimated $115 million in repairs and other projects to modernize the 20-story building built in 1999 alongside the flood-prone Buffalo Bayou. The work was primarily funded by the Harris County Commissioners Court, then the Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursements and yet-to-be finalized insurance payouts.
COURTHOUSE CHAOS: Harris County's busy courthouse hit with another issue: Toilet water in a courtroom
Since 2001, the courthouse has closed on three occasions for flooding. The courts moved out for nearly a year following Tropical Storm Allison and paused again for five days in 2015 during the Memorial Day flood. Flood mitigation followed each natural disaster.
The latest work has included the construction of a flood-proof wall around the building, floodgates, five new elevators, an expanded lobby, refurbished courtrooms and the addition of a first-floor cafeteria. Three of the elevators will ferry jury panels, while two others will transport county employees. The new elevators could be in operation as early as October.
Large tiles have been installed in the renovated Harris County Criminal Justice Center lobby. Photographed Monday, Aug. 22, 2022, in Houston.
Crews work on a cafeteria space at the first floor of Harris County Criminal Justice Center Monday, Aug. 22, 2022, in Houston.
Almost all courtrooms get new carpet and sound-absorbing panels after the Harris County Criminal Justice Center was damaged during Hurricane Harvey. Photographed Monday, Aug. 22, 2022, in Houston.
Faux granite tiles have replaced the sound-dampening walls in courtrooms, which Hill said had blackened over the years with grease from people leaning their heads against the soft material.
What remains a constant at the courthouse is the line of defendants — through rain, shine or scorching heat — queuing up to get inside.
It took defendant 24-year-old Ray Gil about 20 minutes on a recent Monday to shuffle through a labyrinth of construction barricades to make it through security in time for docket. On some days the line takes longer, with deputies directing traffic and instructing defendants to line up across the street and along the Jury Assembly Building park.
A security guard directs people as they line up outside to get into the Harris County Criminal Justice Court on Monday, Aug. 15, 2022 in Houston.
People line up outside to get into the Harris County Criminal Justice Court on Monday, Aug. 15, 2022 in Houston.
Gil arrived amid the 9 a.m. rush for court, as his lawyer had instructed, not knowing that the 338th has a staggered start for 10:30 a.m. and locks its doors until then. He joined droves of defendants waiting on the packed 17th floor for the court to open, with some sitting on the floor until a bailiff called their names. Once docket started, his defense stumbled upon a technical glitch with his case file and reset the appearance, meaning he would have to return in October and do it all over again.
Ricardo Ramos of Spring waits in the hallway before his hearing at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center on Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022 in Houston.
“It would be easier for both the defendant and the lawyer for the unnecessary appearances to go by Zoom,” Gil’s attorney Lori Laird said. “Then we don’t have to fight traffic, pay for parking, fight the security and all the shenanigans to get to court on time.”
Criminal justice stakeholders have characterized the past five years as some of the most logistically trying times in their career.
The chaotic aftermath of the natural disaster bled into the pandemic, which brought the courts to another, much longer halt, causing pending criminal cases to balloon. About 54,000 felony cases were pending in the courts in June 2021, nearly double the case load in the weeks before the virus was first detected in Harris County. Pending cases are on the decline and now stand at around 44,500 — a statistic comparable to the summer of 2020 when jury selection was starting again at NRG Arena, according to Harris County District Courts records.
JURY CHANGES: After 4 years, Houston jury selection is back downtown. Some prospective jurors would rather be home.
“I got into this business because I wanted to help people,” said Eric Davis, trial chief for the Harris County Public Defender’s Office. “I wanted poor people to be represented just like someone who hires an expensive lawyer, on par with the millionaire. The stuff going on down here has not deterred me.”
He said a lack of consistency in court policies during the pandemic (such as in-person requirements in some courtrooms) has been harmful to defendants. Court resets are prolonging cases and adding to the backlog, he continued.
Davis commended improvements made to the lobby and elevators but lamented the decision to force the public defenders to 1310 Prairie so the Harris County District Attorney’s Office can return with five floors in the building. Before Harvey, public defenders and prosecutors worked out of the courthouse on different floors. Afterward, prosecutors were relocated to a far-flung county building near the Galleria and then to the downtown 500 Jefferson office building. Buses have been ferrying lawyers more than a mile from that building to the courthouse.
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Attorneys work in the "law library" in the Harris County Jail, Friday, Oct. 27, 2017, in Houston. Temporary courts were set up in the jail because Hurricane Harvey damaged the Harris County's criminal courthouse.
A worker on the first floor of the Harris County Criminal Justice Center Monday, Aug. 22, 2022, in Houston.
Flood-resistant glasses are installed at the entrance of the Harris County Criminal Justice Center Monday, Aug. 22, 2022, in Houston.
A flood wall has been installed outside the Harris County Criminal Justice Center Monday, Aug. 22, 2022, in Houston. Different flood barrier systems are installed around the building.
Harris County Criminal Justice Center restoration and renovation project manager Tony Foster shows a flood gate that has been installed outside the building Monday, Aug. 22, 2022, in Houston.
The worker working in the brand new fire pump/mechanical room at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center Monday, Aug. 22, 2022, in Houston.
Harris County Engineering Department project manager Gregory Flores says new large format tiles have been installed in the hallways of the Harris County Criminal Justice Center Monday, Aug. 22, 2022, in Houston.
A brand new fire pump/mechanical room is created for the Harris County Criminal Justice Center Monday, Aug. 22, 2022, in Houston.
Workers working on a cafeteria space on the first floor of the Harris County Criminal Justice Center Monday, Aug. 22, 2022, in Houston.
Most in the district attorney’s office are expected to move back into the criminal justice hub by next week.
“It’s been five years and we’re just heading back to a building that’s not yet complete,” Assistant District Attorney Stephen Driver said.
The scattering of lawyers on both sides after Harvey led to innovation as the district attorney’s office started scanning millions of documents and moving away from physical files — a move that unwittingly prepared them for the pandemic.
“We were ahead of the curve,” Driver said. “We could access our files, log in remotely and do the work of court and speak intelligently in front of the judge without missing a step.”
The courthouse construction has undergone years-long delays. The project manager for the county’s engineering department attributes those slow-downs to bureaucratic red tape, the return of court dockets and the pandemic.
Tony Foster, Harris County Criminal Justice Center restoration and renovation project manager, described one of the delays as “construction work disruption driven by requests from Court Operations due to construction-related noise” in county records, likely referring to the judges’ complaints. Supply chain issues that have plagued the construction industry also played a role in pushing back the timeline — and working around the courthouse schedule was another contributor, Foster wrote.
During a recent tour, Foster touted intricate changes to the courthouse guts and exterior — renovations that could sustain the building should another storm wreck havoc on Houston. He showed off the flood-proof barricade surrounding the courthouse and glass windows on the first floor that can withstand pressure from rising waters. Inside, contractors have moved critical systems from the basement to the first floor.
Flood-resistant glass has been installed at the entrance of the Harris County Criminal Justice Center, photographed Monday, Aug. 22, 2022, in Houston.
Workers cleaning the vertical floodgate at the new entrance of Harris County Criminal Justice Center Monday, Aug. 22, 2022, in Houston.
Harris County Criminal Justice Center restoration and renovation project manager Tony Foster, right, and Harris County Engineering Department project manager Gregory Flores show a floodgate between the building and the underground tunnel Monday, Aug. 22, 2022, in Houston.
Flood walls and floodgates have been installed outside the Harris County Criminal Justice Center, photographed Monday, Aug. 22, 2022, in Houston.
A swing floodgate has been installed outside the Harris County Criminal Justice Center in Houston. Different flood barrier systems have installed around the building, which was heavily damaged during Hurricane Harvey. Photographed Monday, Aug. 22, 2022.
An old sally port has been repurposed into a mechanical room with a new fire pump tank on a platform 4 feet off the ground.
Missing from the renovated building are the press rooms that television stations and the Chronicle used to maintain. County officials have said there is no more room.
To make the changes, the budget for the courthouse construction grew from a projected $86 million or less in 2019 to $115 million, with FEMA expected to reimburse Harris County for about $12.2 million of the project.
During a recent trial, prosecutor Lynn Nguyen struggled to project crash reconstruction evidence on her laptop to the television screens for jurors to see, prompting Judge Chuck Silverman to question whether the allocated funds from Commissioners Court were enough to properly improve the infrastructure.
'A TIGHT SQUEEZE': Prosecutors, attorneys cut 'Harvey deals' in jail basement as flood-damaged courthouse is repaired
Some lawyers supported abandoning the building entirely after Harvey and starting over.
“That building is not sufficient,” defense attorney Chris Tritico said. “They had a golden opportunity to get something done and they blew it.”
Jed Silverman, president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association, said most every courtroom is being dedicated to trying cases and that many accommodations, such as the seventh floor attorney’s lounge, were scrapped to make room.
“Every bit of the building is being utilized,” Silverman said.
The courthouse was designed “with no functionality in mind,” Precinct 2 Commissioner Adrian Garcia said.
“It should have been known back then that Harris County was going to be a booming place,” Garcia said. “It’s very apparent that no one thought to have a stakeholder conversation about the facility. It does appear we inherited a piece of crap.”
Five years after Hurricane Harvey slammed into the Texas coast and inundated the Houston region, there is trauma, recovery and frustration. Over the week of the anniversary of the storm, the Chronicle assesses the damage and the progress in a eight-part series.
Nicole Hensley is a staff writer for the Houston Chronicle. She joined the Chronicle in 2018 from the New York Daily News and after writing for The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington. A native of Seattle, Nicole is a graduate of Washington State University.