The Trials of Susan Hawk

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Texas Monthly: The Trials of Susan Hawk The new district attorney of Dallas County was a rising star in politics with power and fame in her grasp. Then she started behaving erratically and firing members of her staff before dropping out of sight. Now that she has sought treatment for depression, will her staff welcome her back? Should they?

 

September 30, 201

5By Skip Hollandsworth1 Comment

It was on Monday morning, March 16, 2015, when the rumor started racing down the hallways of the Frank Crowley Courts Building, in Dallas. Over the weekend, Susan Hawk, the new district attorney of Dallas County, supposedly had met with her first assistant, Bill Wirskye, and accused him of breaking into her house in hope of finding a compromising photo that had been taken of her years ago when she had been at a bar with a group of her female friends, downing a drink from a shot glass that had been placed on a bartender’s lap. Hawk then had accused Wirskye of trying to ruin her reputation so that she would be forced to resign, paving the way for Wirskye to be named as her replacement.

 

The lawyers at the courthouse couldn’t believe what they were hearing. The 45-year-old Hawk was a rising star in Texas politics who had defeated incumbent Craig Watkins the previous November to become the first female district attorney in Dallas County history. She had asked the 49-year-old Wirskye, one of the most respected criminal attorneys in Dallas, to be her first assistant, and he had given up his lucrative practice to work for her. At her swearing in ceremony after the election, he had served as the master of ceremonies, telling an exuberant crowd of supporters that a “new era of justice was about to be written for all citizens of Dallas County.”