While it didn’t happen this year, Denton County Sheriff Benny Parkey is hoping to sway commissioners in the future to move the position of sheriff’s counsel to his office.

Benny Parkey

Parkey’s item was a last-minute addition to the Commissioners Court agenda for Tuesday’s meeting, as the sheriff hoped to convince the court to move the counsel position from the district attorney’s office to his department. The move would give Parkey a say in who is hired for a position that he says is important to the day-to-day work of the sheriff’s office.

“I really just wanted to start the ball rolling, start the thought process of the position of sheriff’s counsel,” Parkey said.

He said the counsel position in the district attorney’s office is assigned to his department and deals exclusively with the sheriff’s office in a number of areas, including employment and jail issues.

The need for new counsel came when the previous chief of the civil section left, and District Attorney Paul Johnson moved John Feldt to chief of the civil section, leaving an opening for an attorney. Johnson decided to take Hardy Burke for the open position, which would take Burke from his job as sheriff’s counsel, and put Claire Yancey in that position.

“I received a phone call from the DA telling me what is going to happen, and tried to plead my case,” Parkey said.

Burke had held the position for more than three years and was working well, Parkey said.

“I really prefer to maintain continuity of representation,” he said. “Obviously, that was not the plan for the position.”

If a change in staffing is needed, Parkey said, then he should be allowed to take a look at the list of possible candidates and to offer his opinion.

“That wasn’t an option either,” he said. “I felt like I needed to at least express my opinion to the court. The DA is supposed to be the legal representative of the county. I feel like, as a client of a lawyer, we should have some say.”

Jamie Beck, first assistant to the district attorney, said the district attorney’s office knows the employees best.

“[Parkey] has not met or worked with Yancey to have an informed position about her or her legal experience,” Beck said. “We put the best people in the best positions so they can represent the county and our office.”

Beck said that in the past Parkey was not satisfied with the choice of sheriff’s counsel.

“He gave the same argument when Burke was moved there in 2007,” she said. “Now you see in 2010 he’s arguing to keep [him]. He must have been wrong in 2007, and hopefully, he’s wrong in 2010.”

Parkey said he would try again next year to move the position under his authority.

“I did not realistically expect them to take some major action, but I wanted them to understand I was concerned about this,” he said. “This isn’t something where we will say, ‘OK, we didn’t get what we wanted.’ We will have time to prepare our case and make our argument.

“It may end up the same result, but we will make the request next year.”

BJ LEWIS can be reached at 940-566-6875. His e-mail address is blewis@dentonrc.com .