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Moore: 'I believe that justice should be held to a high standard. ...'

But there is this other woman haunting him these days. This one wants his job, a job that Tim Curry isn't even close to being ready to give up, he said. Terri Moore, his first opponent in 12 years, is breathing down his neck in a race that many courthouse political junkies say is the most serious challenge he has faced since 1972 when he defeated incumbent Doug Crouch, arguably one of the most controversial D.A.'s in the county's history.

What is it about Terri Moore that makes people take her seriously as Curry's opponent? The Democrat is certainly qualified: 10 years as an assistant county prosecutor, four years as a federal prosecutor, spotless records in both jobs. She speaks thoughtfully and with passion about putting the bad guys in jail and making sure the victims get through their ordeals. She's friendly and calculating, she's tough and approachable, she's loud and she's brash and she's funny.

But for Fort Worth audiences, one of her more valuable traits may be her ability to cuss just the right way. A lot of politicians try to get folksy in front of reporters, dropping an f-bomb or two to show their proletarian leanings. Moore, instead, likes to tell a story of how a gang member in the mid-'90s kept asking his lawyer if "that bitch Terri Moore" was going to be prosecuting his case. She revels in the title, and points out that when the fury behind it is unleashed upon the criminals, watch out, boys, because you're going to jail. Even when she's sitting calmly at a restaurant table, smiling, you can imagine her running wild through the courthouse, frightening gang members, defense lawyers, and a court reporter or two.

Moore, 43, is unleashing that power on Curry this fall in a race that is delicious from a number of angles. Curry hired Moore out of law school in 1987, and she rose through the ranks in his office. In 1998, she said, he told her he was running one more time and would retire before the 2002 election. According to Moore (he denies it), Curry even offered to keep the seat warm for her, promising endorsements and money if she ran in 2002. And aside from the issues of loyalty and political opportunism, there is also the fact that the future of the entire Tarrant County Democratic Party, in a sense, is riding on Moore. The last time any Democrat held countywide office here was 1998.

The reason this race is so important for both parties is the impact on local judicial races. For many years, Democratic lawyers have not run against Curry or the Republican judges because they feared reprisals. The theory -- vehemently denied by Curry supporters -- goes this way: If you ran against Curry and lost, he would get his Republican judge friends to blackball you from government-appointed legal defense work. Likewise, lawyers running against Republican judges fear they would get the same treatment. Criminal Court Judge Daryl Coffey said the theory is ridiculous. As proof, he names two judges who were appointed to the bench after they ran against Curry.

Still, Democrats hope a Moore victory would break the logjam. The challenger said she would hire more women and minorities, who might tend to run as Democrats for judge when they decided to leave the D.A.'s office. Any blackballing of criminal defense lawyers would be more difficult if she held the top lawyer job in the county. And if she won, Democrats might be emboldened to take their shots at countywide judge races, which would pull the party out of the pit it now finds itself in.

Not surprisingly, some see Moore's quest as a long shot. After all, she is running against a 30-year incumbent with great name identification in a county that votes Republican about 3 to 1. But if you put your ear to the ground, you can hear the hoofbeats that signal a real horse race. The approaching dust cloud is not lost on political pundits in this town.

Thirty years ago it was Tim Curry who was the brash young challenger hell-bent on upsetting the status quo in the graceful old courthouse at the end of Main Street.

Curry had come by his legal career honestly -- his dad was a lawyer who moved his practice and his family from the tiny Panhandle town of Tulia to Fort Worth in 1942. Tim and his older brother Alfred grew up in Arlington Heights; their dad's law practice put both of them through Baylor Law School. Both joined their dad's firm, although Tim first put in a year as a prosecutor with then-D.A. Frank Coffey.

In 1972, after nine years with the family law firm, Curry made common bond with a bunch of other young Turks who decided it was time to overthrow Coffey's successor, Doug Crouch, whose administration was marked by charges of corruption and favoritism. Tim was 34. One late night over drinks in a bar with the other rabble-rousers, Curry decided he would be the one to take on Crouch. He filed "on the last day at the last minute. I planned to stay four years, no more. But I didn't realize how much I'd like it."

Curry made the same kind of criticism of Crouch that Moore is leveling at him now. "If you weren't in [Crouch's] tight little circle," Curry recalled recently, "you were out. He engaged in selective prosecutions. I didn't think things should be run that way." Curry won in a landslide.

The one thing he had to give up was his half interest in the Albatross Club, a Jacksboro Highway beer joint that Curry and his brother had gotten in payment from a client. During the campaign, Crouch had called him a "part-time lawyer and part-time bartender." He sold his interest, but the Albatross would hang around his neck for the next quarter-century, as the favorite after-hours watering hole for Curry and half the courthouse, the place where his enemies said he would sneak out to drink during office hours. "I drank in those days," he said, "but not on the job. It's not illegal to drink, just to drive and drink. I never did that."

Curry had hammered Crouch for not personally prosecuting cases, charging him with being "absent from his office." During his own first five years in office, Curry tried and won a large number of cases. "I had to," he said, "because there were only 30 attorneys in the office." The last case he prosecuted was the tremendously high-profile murder case against Cullen Davis in 1977, which he lost.

Since then, he's stayed out of the courtroom -- a point that Moore makes repeatedly. Curry said "overriding administrative duties" in a county quickly filling up with people forced him to make the change. Today he oversees more than 200 lawyers and about 125 support staff. "I hire good people," he said. "I review all of the cases we prosecute. My job is running this office."

Judge Coffey said one way to measure Curry is to look at the list of his opponents -- all have been former prosecutors from his office. "Everybody who's ever run against Tim are folks he's helped. When I came here from Kentucky without any political pull, Tim hired me on merit. That's how he operates. He's honest. There's never been any hint of corruption as long as I've known him. And when public policy calls for change, he responds." As examples, he cited Curry's prosecution units for DWI, domestic violence, and economic crimes, all of which, he said, are the best in the state.

Alan Levy, Curry's top prosecutor, said that under his boss' leadership, the office has built an outstanding record of convictions in some of the highest-profile murder and disappearance cases in the country. "Our conviction rate stays around 90 percent," he said. "So what if Curry hasn't prosecuted a case since 1977? His business is to manage this office and let his attorneys prosecute.

"We get a lot of young lawyers fresh out of law school," Levy said, "and they want important cases. We let them have 'em and get some face time with the media."

Curry's innovations are as important as the office's conviction rate, he said. "This was the first office in the state," he said, to have an "open file policy," that allows an accused person's lawyer to come in and read the charges. "We don't do trial by ambush."

Moore's campaign against Curry won't be by ambush, either -- more like full frontal assault. It's the same way she conducted business as a highly successful prosecutor, both under Curry and later in the Dallas office of the U.S. Attorney -- and the way she learned, around her family dinner table, to take on issues.

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