Del Rio ties shine as Judge Alia Moses portrait unveiled in San Antonio

A portrait of Chief U.S. District Judge Alia Moses now hangs in the San Antonio courthouse that anchors the Western District of Texas, and for Del Rio it marks the rise of a local legal figure to the top of a 68-county federal bench. The June 26 unveiling turned the courthouse into both a tribute and a hometown milestone, with Moses’ career carrying clear Del Rio connections into the region’s highest federal judicial leadership.

Moses, born in 1962 in Eagle Pass, earned her B.B.A. from Texas Woman’s University in 1983 and her law degree from the University of Texas School of Law in 1986. President George W. Bush nominated her to the Western District on July 11, 2002, the Senate confirmed her on November 14, and she received her commission the next day. Court materials say she took the oath of office on November 18, 2002, becoming the first woman appointed to a district bench in the Western District of Texas.

Her rise mattered far beyond symbolism. Texas Woman’s says Moses oversees budgetary and administrative matters for a district that stretches across about 93,000 square miles and includes El Paso, San Antonio, Austin and Waco, along with large parts of the Hill Country and West Texas. The same university says she presides over about 1,000 criminal and civil cases a year in one of the nation’s busiest criminal dockets. Over the course of her judicial career, Texas Woman’s has also said she has overseen about 200 jury trials, closed more than 13,000 criminal cases and sentenced nearly 16,000 defendants.

For Val Verde County, the Del Rio connection is central. Court and bar-association materials say Moses became the first district judge to reside in the Del Rio division, and the first female district judge for the Western District of Texas. That detail has practical weight in a community where federal cases, courthouse operations and judicial leadership are part of daily legal life. Moses later became the Western District’s first female chief judge in 2022, a role the Federal Judicial Center says she has held since then.

The portrait ceremony drew about three dozen former law clerks who worked with Moses in Del Rio, many of them traveling from outside Texas to attend. Former colleagues and other judges also came to San Antonio, turning the event into a reunion as well as a formal courthouse honor. Texas Woman’s says professor Jim Alexander helped establish the barrister’s club that sharpened Moses’ interest in law while she was a student there, adding another thread to a career that now stretches from local beginnings to district-wide authority. The district court also closed several San Antonio courthouse offices from noon to 5 p.m. on June 26 so employees could attend the ceremony.