Chief Justice Barajas is a former faculty member of the National Judicial College in Reno, Nevada, where he was an instructor on the use of information technology. He served as a designer of the State of Texas Judicial Commission on Information Technology and as the original Chair of the Appellate Court Technology Committee. In addition, he has served on the board of the National Organization for Victims Assistance, an organization which provides national advocacy for victims of crime, direct services for those crime victims when not otherwise available, and assistance to professional colleagues. He serves as the national Chair of the NOVA Task Force on Identity Theft, a task force to examine the effects of victimization of identity theft and services which may be afforded those crime victims. A nationally recognized lecturer on the proper balancing of the constitutional rights between the criminal defendant and the intended victim, Chief Justice Barajas was honored by the President of the United States at a White House ceremony as a national recipient of the Presidential Award for Victim Services. He has advised both the Department of Justice, Office of Victims of Crime and the Office of Violence Against Women on issues relating to human trafficking. In addition, he is a frequent lecturer on topics relating to judicial ethics, educational leadership and mentoring, the applicability of federal constitutional protections to the parochial school setting, the separation of church and state (as it relates to the issue of school vouchers), and various aspects of educational management and technology. He was named the “2004 Jurist of the Year” by the Mexican American Bar Association. In 2012 he was honored by Loretto Academy of El Paso, Texas with the Loretto Legacy Award in Government and Politics. In 2014 was honored by the McDonald’s Corporation as a recipient of the Hispanos Triunfadores Award For Excellence in Education.
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