The new Lubbock County Criminal District Attorney, Sunshine Stanek, has worked in the DA’s office for almost 19 years. She is the first female to hold the office, but that’s not the thing she is focused on. We got to sit down with her to talk about her first few weeks in the corner office.
Stanek says, “it’s been surreal, I’ve been here so long and I’ve been in four or five different rooms in the office and most recently right down the hall from Matt Powell as the 1st Assistant.” When talking to her she says there was no reason to shake up the office or or make any changes because the office is a well-oiled machine and she values the people she works with. “I’ve been here so long and now I’m in the corner office. Now I know what Matt Powell and Bill Sowder meant by you should come see me here in the corner sometime….because some people completely bypass this office.”
The title may be new but since she was hired by now Judge Bill Sowder in 2000 she knows the office well. “Again, I think I have a unique perspective because I know the people in this office and most of the people in the County and have good relationships with them so I’m just working to make the office my own and put my own mark on it.”
Stanek is a wife and mother so she knows how to set goals. so we asked her what her professional goals for the office were. “One of the most important things to me is to see justice, you’ve heard both Matt and Bill say Doing the right things for the right reason and we will of course continue to do that. My thing is I’m not here to make popular decisions, I’m here to make the right decisions and the right decisions are what justice is on the case. That’s the most important thing in this office.”
As a graduate of Texas Tech Law School, she and her husband have been in the Lubbock community for over 20 years. And Stanek says community is important to her. “I’m trying to take the mystery out of the DA’s office. This concept of community justice. I’m an elected official and want to provide community justice. We want the community to know what this office is about. So just get ourselves out in the community more. I won’t require our people to do things in the community but I encourage it. We are doing social media type things. We have a new Facebook page, letting people know what is going on at the DA’s office and outside the DA’s office.”
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