The People Help

Jailed honor student gets her name cleared & $100,000: Judge sets asideconviction in face of outrage

Diane Tran
Brian Wice, attorney
Judge Lanny Moriarty

A week after she was tossed in jail for truancy, an outpouring of support for Willis honor student Diane Tran has helped clear her name.

Tran, a junior at Willis High School in Montgomery County, missed 18 days of school this year as she worked two jobs trying to support two siblings, all while maintaining honor roll grades in AP and college credit classes. After judge Lanny Moriarty sentenced her to 24 hours in jail and a $100 fine for truancy, her case got national and international attention, with nearly a quarter-million people signing a petition for the judge to drop the charges.

After retaining noted Houston attorney Brian Wice — he's defended high-profile clients including Susan Wright and Michael Brown — Tran's contempt of court citation was set aside by Moriarty, and Wice told The Huffington Post that he would have another lawyer expunge the record.

"I'm gratified that I was able to convince Judge Moriarty that what happened last Wednesday was not the right result," Wice told CultureMap. He praised Moriarty for giving Tran a "proverbial do-ever" and said that the judge had been unfairly vilified by the media.

"She can now truthfully say that she doesn't have a criminal history," Wice told HuffPo. "I don't think anybody could have conceived of any script where this is the ultimate outcome in the third act. . . . I know that Diane is beyond grateful."

In addition to the petition to clear her record, people from 19 countries and all 50 states have donated more than $100,000 towards a trust fund to help Tran.

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Thanks, Queen Bey

Pop icon Beyoncé donates $100,000 to University of Houston Law School

Photo by Erza Shaw Getty Images

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Pop megastar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has donated $100,000 to the University of Houston Law Center Criminal Justice Clinic through her BeyGOOD Foundation. The gift will allow the clinic to hire fill-time faculty to head it, benefiting the students who study there.

“I am delighted that the BeyGOOD Foundation has made this very generous gift to the UH Law Center,” said Leonard Baynes, dean of the UH Law Center. “Not only will this funding help establish a full-time criminal justice clinic that provides pro bono legal services in our community, but it will also supercharge our already excellent criminal law and justice programming.”

The clinic is one of nine at UHLC. It helps students learn to navigate the criminal justice system, especially on behalf of clients that are underserved by skilled attorneys. People of color are affected disproportionately by a lack of good, ethical representation.

Beyoncé, the most decorated artist in Grammy history and easily the biggest musical star native to Houston, has a long history of advocating for criminal justice reform. She was a staunch supporter of the police reform following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, asking law enforcement to “stop killing us” in a web post. In 2020, she penned an open letter to the Kentucky attorney general asking for justice in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Through her BeyGOOD Foundation, established in 2013, Beyoncé has focused mostly on expanding the prospects of Black-owned business and offering education opportunities to students. Forwarding the cause of legal representation in Texas while also helping out marginalized communities compliments her other philanthropic work.

“At UH Law, we envision a legal profession where ‘everyone has the opportunity to prosper,’ as BeyGOOD envisions, and we will achieve this vision by providing access to strong and effective legal representation in criminal proceedings,” Baynes said. “And together, through this gift, the BeyGOOD Foundation and UHLC will shepherd the next generation of criminal justice attorneys in the city of Houston, the state of Texas and the nation.”