Meet Thomas Smith

Candidate for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge - Place 3.

 

Thomas began his legal career as a law clerk to one of the most acclaimed conservative state jurists in American history, the Honorable Thomas J. Moyer, Chief Justice of the Ohio Supreme Court.  In 1998, he joined the law firm of Jones Day in their Dallas office and embarked on a wide ranging career of civil practice before returning to government as counsel to then senator Ken Paxton in 2013.  Since 2015 he has served in the Attorney General's office, including as a Special Assistant Attorney General for Criminal Justice. 

The son of a public schoolteacher and an oil & gas driller, Thomas was born in southern Ohio in one of the poorest counties in the state, an area similar to the one that Vice President JD Vance wrote about in his book, Hillbilly Elegy.  Conservatism and love for America goes back many decades in his family.  His grandfather served as a delegate for Barry Goldwater at the 1964 Republican National Convention, and two of his great uncles served in the armed forces, one as a Brigadier General in the Pacific Theater in World War II, and the other, James Deal, was killed in action in World War I. 

He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Akron in 1993, where he was student body president. He then graduated from The Ohio State University College of Law in 1996, and obtained a Masters in Public Affairs from the University of Texas at Austin in 2013.  A musician since the age of 7, Thomas writes and records original music and he has also authored a book, The Long Way Home, a fictional tale about a cat who endures a long journey home after being lost in a hurricane.

Thomas is a member of Highland Park United Methodist Church.  He and his wife Audrey reside in the Dallas area along with their two children and rescued cats.