SAN ANTONIO – Bexar County District Attorney Nicholas "Nico" LaHood has added another high-profile case to the list of trials from which he is asking to be recused.
The latest case is that of dermatologist Dr. Calvin Day, who was convicted on sexual assault charges in June 2013. He appealed the conviction and was granted a new trial.
Day's trial attorney was Andrew Del Cueto, who was LaHood's law partner when LaHood was in private practice as a defense attorney.
"Whenever there is a close call, whether ethically or legally, I need to recuse myself and I'm going to do that," LaHood said Monday.
Since taking office earlier this month, LaHood has asked to be recused from over 300 cases including two other high-profile cases.
Those are the cases of Anthony Thomas, a former deputy who shot and killed a man during a confrontation on Loop 1604 in August 2013 while he was off duty, and the capital murder case of brothers Conrad and Baron Ochoa, who are accused of killing Conrad Ochcoa's daughter, his daughter's mother and a friend of the child's mother in 2011.
LaHood says the recusals will not result in a trial backlog.
"This is very normal when you're talking about a county of our size and someone that comes from the defense attorney background," he said.