Attorney General's office

Mr. Idar joined the State Attorney General's office in 1973, and worked there for 10 years. Besides management and office files, there are also cases on which Idar worked, divided into "police cases" and "prisoner rights cases."

By far, the largest section are the records ofRuiz v. Estelle, which at the time of the hearings was the largest civil rights case ever in Texas. David Ruiz filed complaints against the Texas Department of Corrections (TDC) in 1974, and the pretrial, trial, and appeal lasted ten years. Idar, in working for the AG's office, would defend the TDC. Post-trial involvement of the Court in TDC affairs would last until 1990.

Ruiz is arranged with office files, general correspondence, and attorney's fees first. Filings are ordered chronologically, and do not, generally speaking, include filings of the appeal. The testimony of various witnesses is arranged alphabetically. Some of the printed testimonies are over 100 pages. The appeal is arranged chronologically; most of the materials deal with the motion for stay filed by Idar in 1981.

Next are the files of the "Special Master," a person appointed by the Court to oversee the renovations of prison policies. Nathan Vincent was appointed to this position after the appeal. Vincent was responsible for forcing the TDC to comply with Judge Justice's rulings on how the TDC would run its prisons. The Attorney General's office tried consistently to get rid of the Special Master, without success. These documents reflect those attempts.

After the files on the trial and ruling itself, there are other various materials used for the trial, such as annual reports, budgets, and agendas from the TDC. There are also cases from other states that were related to Ruiz v. Estelle, and many press clippings and articles about TDC and the case specifically. Finally, in the "Subject Files", there are materials on prison overcrowding, segregation, and various religious movements inside TDC, such as the Texas Mafia and other white supremecist prison gangs.