Suzanne H. Wooten. Photo: Mark Graham

An exonerated former Texas judge is asking Dallas' Fifth Court of Appeals to step in and grant emergency relief that would order the Republican Party to place her on the ballot for the 2020 primary election.

But the party argues Suzanne Wooten's does not meet the qualification criteria, because her suspension meant she wasn't practicing for the prerequisite period before her exoneration.

Being wrongfully convicted of nine felonies in 2011 ruined Wooten's life and livelihood. She resigned as a district judge and her law license was suspended — until her exoneration in 2017 promised to redeem her.

With her law license back, Wooten is taking a chance to run for Collin County's 401st District Court.

But the Texas Constitution requires judge candidates to have been practicing law for four years before an election. In Wooten's case, there's a question of whether her exoneration negates the suspension of her law license suspension.

Claiming the local Republican Party wrongly disqualified her from the March 2020 Republican Primary ballot, Wooten has asked Dallas' Fifth Court of Appeals for relief and assistance in getting on the primary ballot.

"She was completely exonerated by the district court, and reinstated and restored, as though she never lost her law license at all," Wooten's attorney Scott Palmer said. "We think this is a case of first impression."

Wooten's Dec. 6 petition for writ of mandamus in the case, In Re Suzanne Wooten, explained that in a Nov. 25 letter, Collin County Republican Party Chairman Mark Reid wrote to Wooten that public records required him to declare her ineligible for the ballot. Reid wrote that Wooten's law license was suspended between October 2012 and June 2017. The Texas Constitution would require Wooten to have been a practicing lawyer for the four years preceding the election, which means 2016 to 2020, he wrote.

Wooten argued that a court in May 2017 exonerated her and vacated her nine felony convictions as though they never existed or had any legal effect. The court's order also said any legal disabilities that flowed from those convictions were void and ordered to be set aside.

Wooten claimed that her law license suspension was one of those "legal disabilities" that resulted from the void convictions. The Texas Board of Disciplinary Appeals terminated the suspension in June 2017, the petition said.

"The suspension was voided by judicial order, and thus as a matter of law never existed," Wooten claimed.

Currently, the State Bar of Texas shows that Wooten has no public disciplinary history, the petition added.

The law at issue is Texas Elections Code Sec. 145.003(f), which sets out how to find that a candidate is unqualified for office. If the facts of that ineligibility are not determined by a judge, then they must be conclusively established by another public record.

Wooten argues that the public record doesn't conclusively show she's ineligible for the ballot.

However, in a Dec. 9 response, Reid and the Collin County Republican Party maintained that Wooten doesn't meet the Constitution's requirements to be a judge and that Reid relied on records that do conclusively establish her ineligibility.

"As a matter of law, an attorney whose license is suspended cannot be a 'practicing lawyer' because the attorney is not a member in good standing of the bar and any practice of law activity is prohibited," the response said.

Lenahan Law Firm partner Tom Cowart of Dallas didn't return a call or email seeking comment before deadline.

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