Appeals court delivers defeat to former Kerr County Commissioner and convicted felon Belew

The Texas Eighth Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that Harley David Belew’s removal from the Kerr County Commissioners Court was correct, turning back Belew’s appeal.

The decision, handed down Friday, affirmed the Sept. 29, 2023 decision by 198th District Court visiting Judge Sid Harle that removed Belew from the court. The decision also effectively ends any chance Belew had at returning to the commissioners’ court.

“Notwithstanding Belew’s proofs, and the uncontroverted assertion that he has maintained a spotless record since then (which we accept as true), we affirm the trial court’s judgment removing him from office,” wrote Chief Justice Jeff Alley, a Gov. Greg Abbott appointee to lead the El Paso-based court.

The ruling also ordered Belew to repay the state of Texas for its court costs, which could run in the tens of thousands of dollars. Belew’s only turn could be an appeal to the Texas Supreme Court.

Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, who has faced savage verbal attacks by Belew and his supporters, said the ruling validated the process of removing a convicted felon from an office he was not entitled to hold.

“This was not some conspiracy,” Kelly said. “It was a follow-up on a public complaint that was referred to the property authorities, who did their job, exercised their prosecutorial discretion, pursued it to judgment, and now appeal.”

Belew has repeatedly attempted to suggest that Kelly conspired to remove him from the court, but the facts have proven pesky for the radio DJ turned-politician.

The heart of the argument was whether Belew was eligible to serve after revelations emerged that he possessed a felony conviction stemming from a string of burglaries in 1973 when he was 17. Belew tried to argue that he was part of an early form of “deferred adjudication” for youthful offenders, a program that Texas didn’t formally institute until 1975. The court did not agree with that assessment.

“As a result, the summary judgment record allows for only one reasonable inference: the documents in the 1973 criminal case file establish that Belew was convicted of a felony, and if Belew was given legal advice otherwise, that advice was incorrect,” Alley wrote.

“Because the documents in the 1973 criminal case file, including the 1973 Judgment and the Waiver of Appeal, conclusively show that Belew was convicted of a felony, and because Belew has failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact, we conclude that the trial court did not err in granting the state’s motion for summary judgment,” Alley concluded.

During the appeal, Belew’s attorney, Patrick O’Fiel, attempted to shift the focus from the past conviction to an argument that Harle should have never heard the case because he was both a visiting judge and the presiding judge of an administrative region. The court rejected this argument.

Since the case was in Kerr County, it fell under the Sixth Administrative Judicial Region. Presiding Judge Stephen Ables assigned it to Harle, who presides over the Fourth Administrative Judicial Region. However, Belew argued that Harle assigned himself the case.

“No case cited by Belew — and no case that we have found — holds that an “office” which is not a “true permanent office” counts as an office for purposes of the emolument clause in Texas Constitution art. XVI, § 40. Several cases suggest the opposite,” Alley wrote.