Ian Juarez EDINBURG – A huge crowd of people showed up to the oral arguments that were held at the Performing Arts Complex at UTRGV, filling up the entire bottom floor of the auditorium.
The Texas Supreme Court Justices consolidated the following cases for the oral arguments:
-Texas General Land Office versus Save RGV
-Cameron County versus Save RGV
The oral arguments consisted of each lawyer presenting their argument for the case and having to defend its validity and standing against the judges’ questions.
Various schools from around the Valley showed up to witness the event such as Harlingen Highschool South, Idea Elsa Prep and Jimmy Carter Early Highschool.
Rene Perez, Harlingen City Commissioner District 5 and teacher at Harlingen Highschool South, brought his class to expose them to community engagement.
“The people that are in these rooms, that make these decisions, they need public input. And that’s what this, that’s what engagement does. So, I’m all in favor of this, and I think we need more of it,” Perez said. “It’s extremely important that the public stays informed. A lot of times what happens is we don’t have engagement in our community. And because of that, laws are passed or things happen that people don’t like. And the only way to prevent that is to be engaged.”
After the discussion period concluded, five students, four of which where from high schools in the valley, were allowed to ask the Texas Supreme Court Justices any questions so long as they were not related to the cases discussed in the arguments.
Ian Alfaro, UTRGV Student Government Association vice-president, was the first student to have the chance to speak to the justices and he asked if they believed there should be a law school in the Valley.
Jimmy Blackrock, Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court, replied, “We don’t have a law school south of San Antonio. And we have a long way to go from here to there. But I don’t see any reason why that shouldn’t be, a goal of, of this community.”
Alfaro said the justices are the highest level of judges he has ever spoken to and he was impressed by their expertise.
“Just like the attention to detail that these judges have, it’s kind of like they’re very careful because anytime an attorney brings up something they really want to dissect, and even they bring up high, high, hypotheticals because they want to, make sure to just not not only look to the present, but also look to the future of what may happen,” Alfaro said.
Results for the Supreme Courts opinions will be posted on the texcourts.gov/supreme in the following months.
Anyone interested in viewing the full arguments as well as the Q&A, they can be found on the Texas Supreme Court’s YouTube Channel.
