Lubbock First Candidate Forum for March 7th Primary Race - KCBD NewsChannel 11 Lubbock

The two Lubbock District Attorney candidates are incumbent Matt Powell and Tommy Turner. The governor appointed Powell to that position after Bill Sowder left to serve as 99th District Judge. The other opponent is Tommy Turner. He has 31 years of trial experience, including a short stint in the District Attorney's office many years ago.

Turner accused the current D.A.'s office of wasting tax payer money. From there, it turned into a debate. Here are the highlights.

"Our present D.A.'s office has utilized our jury courts less than 50 percent of the time it's been available. That means people have been called to jury duty, where we have a judge and jurors, but no one to try the case. That is not efficient," said Turner.

"Our office has been doing a tremendous job using the resources we've been given. Prime example. We have this murder case we've been getting ready for three weeks. The judge ruled a continuous on it last Friday. We had two other trials ready to go today (Tuesday,)" said Powell.

Everyone was invited to the forum, seven candidates showed. Those who did include: State Representative District 83 candidates Frank Morrison, Van Wilson, County Judge candidate Tom Head, County Court at law #2 candidate Scott Morris and of course District Attorney candidates Matt Powell and Tommy Turner.

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