District attorney candidate Chuck Rosenthal , as an assistant Harris County prosecutor, produced a voters' guide for the 1998 judicial races replete with derogatory comments about incumbents and candidates, including some in his own Republican Party.

Rosenthal , a member of the district attorney's office for 22 years, said he routinely prints a voter's guide for judicial elections and has only had one complaint - from a judge he once deemed "horrible."

"I think every big law firm in town basically does internal stuff like this," Rosenthal said Monday. "People certainly come to me and ask who are the right judges to vote for. If something I write is spiced up to be tongue-in-cheek, funny or a little salty, that is kind of the way we talk down here."

Other candidates in the five-way Republican primary race for district attorney took a dimmer view of Rosenthal 's ruminations, however, and questioned his judgment in printing the materials.

"Any lawyer who is an officer of the court needs to be careful of making derogatory statements about judges," said rival Michael Stafford, first assistant county attorney. "It's not even about Republicans or Democrats; to me it's an issue of deference to the court."

Jim Leitner, a longtime defense lawyer and former prosecutor in the race, said he is aware of Rosenthal 's voters' guides.

"I have heard about it, and I haven't heard anything about it that was good," Leitner said.

But Rosenthal touts the voters' guides in his 2000 district attorney's race campaign literature, noting that he has produced them for every primary and general election. His campaign flier estimates that in the 1998 primaries he gave out more than 400 copies.

"It was something I worked hard on, trying to find out who the good judges were," Rosenthal said, adding that he produced the guides at home and not from his county office.

The obscenity-laced, three-page guide notes that state District Judge Jim Wallace "does the best impersonation of an incompetent judge in the courthouse."

Other incumbents and candidates are described as "lazy," "a jerk," and "a slug."

In the 1998 race for County Criminal Court at Law 7, Rosenthal said Susan "Spruce is a liberal egg-head Democrat who can't win. Woody Denson is an alcoholic, Pam Derbyshire is a prime candidate for black robe disease and if elected could become `The Judge Formerly Known as Princess."

Asked about the comments two years after he wrote them, Rosenthal stood by his characterizations, including that of Derbyshire, a Republican and former prosecutor who ultimately won that race.

Derbyshire, who is Jewish, declined comment on the apparent reference to the slur "Jewish American Princess," by Rosenthal , a Southern Baptist.

Rosenthal said "black robe disease" is "a condition a lot of judges get when they don't want to hear cases anymore and think they know everything."

He said he did not intend to be offensive or inflammatory in printing the voters guide . Rather, he said, they were meant to entertain and inform.

In his guide , Rosenthal calls Judge Reagan C. Helm "the worst (county criminal court at law) judge around," and says state District Judge John Devine "hasn't got a clue."

State District Judge Annette Galik got the nod from Rosenthal that year, "if for nothing else," he wrote, because "she looks great in jeans."

Still, there is at least one aspect of the voters' guide that Rosenthal disputes as being his own work. The repeated use of the word "sucks" to describe individuals is a word Rosenthal said is not in his "vernacular."

District Attorney John B. Holmes Jr., retiring after 20 years as the county's top prosecutor, professed no knowledge of Rosenthal 's voters' guides, although he has been asked about them by at least one other publication.

While he is not making an endorsement in the primary, Holmes has been telling those who ask that he is voting for Rosenthal .

"I am sure he never thought of running for D.A. whenever he put that out," Holmes said.

Rosenthal said he would not have used certain words if he had the chance to do it over again. He said he didn't consider when he wrote the guide that he may have to answer for it later in a political campaign.

"I certainly can't say I did when I wrote it, because I hoped Johnny Holmes would be here forever," Rosenthal said.