The Heart of Bexar County

Nursing Home and five of its executives with
the murder of an eighty-seven-year-old woman.
The six-month-long jury trial, one of the longest
in Texas history, resulted from charges that the
nursing home had mistreated and abused its
patients. The book focuses on sixty-four
patients and how they died while in the care of
the facility. In a review of the book, the Houston
Post wrote, “The reader is left to decide if this
was a prosecution or—as the defense insisted—
a persecution. The Autumn Hills Nursing Home
case ended in a mistrial.
Roy also defended Woodrow Collums, an
elderly client, who entered his brother’s
nursing home where he lay in a vegetative
state from Alzheimer’s’ disease and put five
bullets in his head. The 1981 case drew national
attention as a “mercy killing” and focused
attention on the moral dilemma faced by the
relatives of terminally ill people. Cullums
received ten years’ probation.
In another notable case in which Roy was
lead counsel and his youngest son, Bobby,
sat as second chair—the so-called “Craig’s List
Escort” murder trial—the defendant was found
“not guilty” based on “a long-ago written
statute that provides for the justified ‘use of
force’ to prevent a theft of property in the
night.” Roy and Bobby debated for months prior
to trial the avenue most judicious and
expeditious for the defense of the murder
charge—it was papa’s defense theory that hit the
nail on the head.
Roy Barrera, Sr. and his son, Roy Barrera, Jr.,
are on opposite sides of the political spectrum,
but live and work together in complete harmony.
Roy, Sr. is a lifetime Democrat while Roy, Jr. was
appointed to a State District Court bench by
then Governor Bill Clements, a Republican.
Another son, Gilbert E. Barrera, also attended
law school but followed his passion for art and
became a noted sculptor, instead. He was selected
by the Hidalgo Foundation to restore a centuryold
fountain and create a new “Lady Justice” for
the crown of the fountain now installed in front
of the Bexar County Courthouse, the state’s
largest and oldest courthouse.
Currently, Nicholas & Barrera includes nine
attorneys who are individual practitioners—sons
Roy R. Barrera, Jr., and Robert J. “Bobby” Barrera,
and grandsons Roy R. Barrera III and Mark
Joseph Barrera, along with Roy Barrera, Sr., make
up the backbone of the office. Roy, Sr., now
ninety-two years old, likes to joke that he could
found a bar association all by himself. Two sons,
5 grandchildren, 3 nephews, a great nephew, and
2 grandsons-in-law all became attorneys.
Also following family work traditions, Roy
Sr.’s youngest daughter, Carmen Alice, a former
Administrative Assistant for then U.S. District
Judge H. F. “Hippo” Garcia, has for the past
nineteen years, worked for her father as a legal
secretary and maintained the family Law
Offices. Nicholas & Barrera is definitely one
dedicated “family affair.”
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