Patrick Metze
Email: patrick.metze@ttu.edu
Phone: (806) 834-2395
Professor Metze initially worked for a real estate developer and investor in Houston, Texas. In January 1976, he established a solo general practice of law in Levelland, Texas, county seat of Hockley County, thirty miles West of Lubbock, Texas. Prior to 1986 and the collapse of the oil industry in West Texas, his general practice included periodic banking, collections, corporate, employee relations, worker's compensation, personal injury, oil and gas leases and contracts, real estate, criminal and family law. Since that time, his practice emphasized more criminal and family law, with less focus on commercial, industrial, and labor related problems. In 2000, he moved his primary office to Lubbock and maintained a client base and close ties to Hockley and Cochran County. He joined the Academy first an adjunct professor teaching the criminal defense clinic at the Texas Tech University School of Law in 2007 and in May 2008, he gave up his private practice and joined the Tech law faculty at the rank of Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Criminal Defense Clinics. In the Spring semester of 2010 he created the Capital Punishment Clinic placing students in the Regional Public Defender for Capital Cases. Fall of 2010 saw the creation of the Caprock Regional Public Defender Office and Clinic, the first full-time public defender office in the nation operated from within a law school by student attorneys and full-time attorney supervisors and instructors. He was promoted to Professor of Law, with tenure, in September 2012. During the Fall of 2016 he established the Texas Tech School of Law Innocence Clinic in association with the Innocence Project of Texas as the school's first in-house post-conviction student run clinic.
While in private practice Professor Metze represented clients at all levels within the State, including Municipal, Justice, County, District (both State and Federal), Court of Appeals, and Court of Criminal Appeals, with travel throughout all regions of the State. He was solicited and appointed by the Court of Criminal Appeals to represent two individuals on death row on their then-pending State Writs of Habeas Corpus, and remained qualified to accept Art. 11.071 C.C.P., appointments until he withdrew from appointment consideration upon entering the Academy. He was one of only 14 attorneys qualified for appointment as first chair in Capital Murder cases in the 45 counties of the 9th Administrative Judicial Region. In private practice, he was the only attorney in Lubbock who was qualified and solicited appointments to indigent clients for misdemeanors, juveniles, felonies, death penalty cases, and appeals in all courts. He has always been dedicated to the representation of the poor and as such, maintains membership in The Pro Bono College of the State Bar of Texas.
Education
- B.A., Texas Tech University, 1970
- J.D., University of Houston, 1973
Courses
- Texas Juvenile Law
- Seminar on Capital Punishment
Selected Publications, Presentations, and Professional Memberships
Publications
- Dissecting the ABA Texas Capital Punishment Assessment Report of 2013: Death and Texas, a Surprising Improvement, forthcoming in the Akron Law Review (December 2017).
- Nothing Changes, It All Remains the Same--Modern Capital Punishment (Human Sacrifice by a Different Name), Invited article for the Texas Tech University School of Law 8th Annual Criminal Law Symposium (April 4, 2014), Texas Tech Law Review, Volume 47, Number 1, p. 179 (Fall 2014).
- Plugging the School-to-Prison Pipeline by Improving Behavior and Protecting Core Judicial Functions: A Constitutional Crisis Looms, St. Mary's Law Journal, Volume 45, Number 1, p. 37 (Fall 2013).
- Feed Me Seymour: The Never-Ending Hunger of the Criminal Process for Procedural Rights and Removing Children from Its Shop of Horrors, Invited article for the Texas Tech University School of Law 7th Annual Criminal Law Symposium (April 5, 2013), Texas Tech Law Review, Volume 46, Number 1, p. 187 (Fall 2013).
- Speaking Truth to Power: The Obligation of the Courts to Enforce the Right to Counsel at Trial, Invited article for the Texas Tech University School of Law 6th Annual Criminal Law Symposium (March 29, 2012), Texas Tech Law Review, Volume 45, Number 1, p. 163 (Fall 2012).
- Troy Davis, Lawrence Brewer & Timothy McVeigh Should Still Be Alive: Certainty, Innocence and the High Cost of Death and Immorality. Invited essay. Charleston Law Review, Volume 6 Number 2, p. 333 (Winter 2012).
- Plugging the School to Prison Pipeline by Addressing Cultural Racism in Public Education Discipline, University of California-Davis, Journal of Juvenile Law & Policy, Volume 16 Issue 1, p. 203 (Winter 2012).
- Death and Texas: The Unevolved Model of Decency; Nebraska Law Review, Volume 90 Number 1, p. 240 (2011).
Presentations
- January 5, 2018, invited to speak at the 37th Annual Prairie Dog Lawyers Advanced Criminal Law Seminar, Lubbock, Texas, on the topic of “Enhancements.”
- August 3, 2017, invited to give the juvenile law case update at the annual Juvenile Law Seminar, Lubbock, Texas, hosted by the Hon. Melissa McNamara, Magistrate; Presented by the South Plains Alternative Dispute Resolution System and the Lubbock Board of Judges.
- April 14, 2017, gave the criminal law practitioner's perspective at a seminar entitled Crimmigration: The Overlap of Criminal Law and Immigration Law, presented by the Texas Tech Immigration Law Association, Criminal Law Association, Hispanic Law Students Association and Black Law Students Association.
- March 31, 2017, invited moderator at the Texas Tech University School of Law 11th Annual Criminal Law Symposium on the topic: Entering the Second Fifty Years of Miranda, Panel III, How is (should) the 6th Amendment Right to Counsel Be Different from the 5th Amendment Right to Counsel?
- December 2016, small group leader for the Terry MacCarthy Cross Examination and Impeachment Seminar at the Center for American and International Law, Plano, Texas.
- January 29, 2016, invited to speak to the University Faculty Research Club on the work of the members of The Center for Social Change, an inaugural member of Texas Tech University's Transdisciplinary Academy.
- November 18, 2015, lectured at the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association Capital Litigation and Mental Health Seminar, South Padre Island, Texas, on the topic of “Creative Motions and the Constitutional Law Behind Them.”
- April 4, 2014, invited panelist at the Texas Tech University School of Law 8th Annual Criminal Law Symposium on the topic: Ignoring the possibility of convicting the innocent and morality issues, is capital punishment a good idea or bad idea, and if the former, how should it be administered?
- February 5, 2014, spoke at the V.G. Young Institute of County Government School for County Commissioners Courts, College Station, Texas, sponsored by Texas A&M Agrilife Extension Service and the Texas A&M University System, in cooperation with the County Judges and Commissioners Association of Texas and the Texas Association of Counties, on the topic: Speaking Truth to Power: The Obligation of the Courts to Enforce the Right to Counsel at Trial.
- January 10, 2014, lectured at the 33nd Annual Prairie Dog Lawyers Advanced Criminal Law Seminar, Lubbock, Texas, on Ethics: What is Justice?
- May 27, 2013, presented paper Speaking Truth to Power: The Obligation of the Courts to Enforce the Right to Counsel at Trial, at the annual meeting of The Law and Society Association in Boston, Massachusetts, as a presenter for a panel entitled Community Justice in the Criminal Courts.
- April 5, 2013, invited panelist at the Texas Tech University School of Law 7th Annual Criminal Law Symposium on the topic: Do (should) juveniles have more, less, the same, or different procedural rights than are accorded to adults?
- November 2, 2012, presented annual update to the Texas Tech University Transdisciplinary Research Academy for the Center for Social Impact, entitled Bringing Change to Capital Defense, Attorneys, Management Theorists, & Writers Collaborating in Texas.
- July 15, 2012, moderated a New Scholar Workshop, Southeastern Association of Law Schools annual meeting, Amelia Island, Florida.
- June 7, 2012, noon luncheon speaker for the 2012 Capital Update Seminar, as part of the 25th Annual Rusty Duncan Advanced Criminal Law Course, Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, San Antonio, Texas, presented by the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association.
- October 20, 2011, video-panelist for campus-wide Social Justice dialogue, Wagner College, Staten Island, New York, discussing the Troy Davis execution and proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Professional Memberships
- Association of American Law Schools
- Clinical Legal Education Association
- American Society of Legal Writers
- American Bar Association
- Hockley-Cochran County Bar Association
- Lubbock Area Bar Association (Former Board member and Secretary)
- Lubbock Criminal Defense Lawyers Association (Former President and Board member)
- Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association (Former Board member and committee chair)
- The Pro Bono College of the State Bar of Texas
- The College of the State Bar of Texas
- State Bar of Texas (April 29, 1974)
- Admitted to United States District Court, Northern District of Texas (1993)
- Texas Tech University Faculty Senate (2014-2017)
- Texas Tech University Ethics Advisory Committee
- Rhodes, Marshall and Truman Scholarship selection committees
- Former member of the Criminal Justice Council of the State Bar of Texas
- Former Board Member of the Criminal Law Section of the State Bar of Texas
- Life Fellow, The Texas Bar Foundation
- Former member of the State Bar standing committee on Legal Services to the Poor in Civil Matters.
- Former member of the Advisory Committee to the Lubbock Special Needs Defenders Office
School of Law
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Address
Texas Tech University School of Law, 3311 18th Street, Lubbock, Texas 79409-0004 -
Phone
806.742.3791 -
Email
law@ttu.edu