Cathy Cochran

Cathleen Cochran Herasimchuk (née Cochran; November 11, 1944 – February 7, 2021), was a judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. A resident of Austin, Texas, she was initially appointed to the court on September 28, 2001 by Governor Rick Perry and elected by Texas voters in 2002 and 2008. She did not seek re-election to the bench in 2014 and was succeeded in her Place 9 seat by her fellow Republican, David Newell of Houston. She died on February 7, 2021.

Education and marriage Born in Los Angeles County, California, Cochran earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in English with distinction from Stanford University in 1966. That same year, she married David Herasimchuk, whom she had met at Stanford. Initially she took his surname of Herasimchuk as her married name. In October 2001, however, at the urging of her husband and friends, she changed back to her maiden name of Cochran in order to run for re-election to the Court because the name was easier to pronounce; at that point her husband changed his name to Cochran, too. where she served as editor-in-chief of the law review, was elected to both the Order of the Coif and the Order of the Barons honor societies, and won the school's Distinguished Service Award. Victory in the ensuing runoff election went to Sharon Keller, the presiding judge over that court since 2001.

Cochran was initially appointed to the Court of Criminal Appeals in 2001 by Governor Perry. In 2002, she won the support of 63 percent of Texas voters for a full six-year term in the office. The Criminal Justice Section of the Texas State Bar named her Jurist of the Year in 2006. In 2008, 82 percent of Texas voters supported her re-election to another six-year term.