John Phillip Devine (born October 3, 1958) is an American attorney and judge who is a justice on the

Supreme Court of Texas The Supreme Court of Texas (SCOTX) is the court of last resort for civil matters (including juvenile delinquency cases, which are categorized as civil under the Texas Family Code) in the U.S. state of Texas. A different court, the Texas Court ...

. A Republican, he was a judge on a

Texas District Court The Texas District Courts form part of the Texas judicial system and are the trial courts of general jurisdiction of Texas. As of January 2019, 472 district courts serve the state, each with a single judge, elected by partisan election to a four- ...

from 1995 to 2002. Since 2013, he has been on the Texas Supreme Court. According to ''The Texas Tribune'', Devine's juridicial philosophy is strongly "shaped by his religious beliefs and deeply conservative politics."

Education

Devine graduated in 1980 with a degree in

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and

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from

Ball State University Ball State University (Ball State or BSU) is a public research university in Muncie, Indiana, United States. The university has three off-campus centers in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, and Fishers, Indiana. The university is composed of seven aca ...

in Muncie, Indiana. He then joined

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Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

and studied law at the

South Texas College of Law South Texas College of Law Houston (STCL or South Texas) is a private law school in Houston, Texas. It was founded in 1923 when the YMCA made the decision to establish a law school with a focus on offering night classes for working professi ...

in Downtown Houston. After earning his

Juris Doctor A Juris Doctor, Doctor of Jurisprudence, or Doctor of Law (JD) is a graduate-entry professional degree that primarily prepares individuals to practice law. In the United States and the Philippines, it is the only qualifying law degree. Other j ...

degree in 1986, he went to work for

Brown and Root KBR, Inc. (formerly Kellogg Brown & Root) is a U.S. based company operating in fields of science, technology and engineering. KBR works in various markets including aerospace, defense, industrial and intelligence. After Halliburton acquired Dres ...

Political career

Devine was an anti-abortion activist in the 1980s. At a June 2012 rally, Devine said he had been arrested 37 times for protesting at abortion clinics. Devine was district judge of the 190th Judicial

District Court District courts are a category of courts which exists in several nations, some call them "small case court" usually as the lowest level of the hierarchy. These courts generally work under a higher court which exercises control over the lower co ...

in Harris County from 1995 through 2002. When he first ran for district judge in 1994, Devine was unopposed in the Republican primary, and narrowly won the general election, unseating Democratic incumbent, Eileen F. O'Neill, 289,943 (50.5 percent) to 284,246 (49.5 percent). Devine was re-elected to a second term on the district court bench in 1998, with 261,514 votes (52.8 percent), defeating Democrat Jane Fraser, who polled 233,597 (47.2 percent). Devine did not seek a third term in 2002. In 2004, Devine was sued for his refusal to take down a painting of

The Ten Commandments The Ten Commandments (), or the Decalogue (from Latin , from Ancient Greek , ), are religious and ethical directives, structured as a covenant document, that, according to the Hebrew Bible, were given by YHWH to Moses. The text of the Ten C ...

on display in his Harris County courtroom. The case drew national attention. Devine ran for a seat on the Texas Supreme Court in 2012, defeating incumbent David M. Medina in a primary

runoff election The two-round system (TRS or 2RS), sometimes called ballotage, top-two runoff, or two-round plurality, is a single-winner electoral system which aims to elect a member who has support of the majority of voters. The two-round system involves one ...

held on July 31, 2012. Devine was then elected without a Democratic Party opponent in the

general election A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from By-election, by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. Gener ...

on November 6, 2012. His term began on January 1, 2013. In 2024, Devine criticized his colleagues on the Supreme Court of Texas after the court refused to allow Jeff Younger to block his ex-wife from moving to California.

Personal life

He is married to Nubia Piedad Gomez, formerly of

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. They have six children, four boys and two girls. Devine and his wife continued a high-risk pregnancy for their seventh child even though the pregnancy was likely to cause the death of both the mother and the child, according to Devine. His wife survived the pregnancy but the child died an hour after birth.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Devine, John 1958 births Living people Ball State University alumni South Texas College of Law alumni Texas Republicans Businesspeople from Texas Texas state court judges Justices of the Supreme Court of Texas Lawyers from Houston Lawyers from Austin, Texas 20th-century Texas state court judges 21st-century American judges People from Peru, Indiana