Guzman is one of seven children of Mexican immigrant parents. She was raised in Houston, where she graduated from the predominantly Hispanic Stephen F. Austin High School in 1979. Now a resident of Cypress in Harris County, she is the first Hispanic woman to serve on the Texashigh court. Another Hispanic, David Medina, was elected to the court in 2006 and served until 2012, the year he was defeated by John P. Devine in the Republican primary run-off for re-nomination to his supreme court seat. Guzman was recognized by the Hispanic National Bar Association as "Latina Judge of the Year" and as "2009 Judge of the Year" by the Mexican American Bar Association of Texas Foundation. At the time of her appointment to the supreme court, Perry called Guzman a "principled conservative with an "unmatched work ethic."
Political life
All nine Supreme Court justices are Republican. Guzman won the GOPnomination for the seat in the primary election held on March 2, 2010. She defeated Judge Rose Vela of the 13th Court of Appeals, 721,456 to 384,135. In the November 2 general election, Guzman defeated Democrat Blake H. Bailey. Prior to her high court appointment, Guzman was an associate justice of the Fourteenth Court of Appeals in Houston, where she ruled on thousands of civil and criminal appeals and wrote hundreds of published opinions. She is also an adjunct professor at the University of Houston Law Center. As of 2009, she had served for more than a decade as the first Hispanic female appointed, and then elected, to both a Harris County Family District Court bench and a seat on the Houston-based 14th Court of Appeals. Guzman has also been named "Appellate Judge of the Year" by the Houston Police Officers Union. She received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Houston, a J.D. degree from South Texas College of Law in Houston, and an LL.M. degree from Duke University School of Law. She is married to retired Houston Police Sergeant Antonio Ray "Tony" Guzman. The couple has a daughter, Melanie Alexis. In the Republican primary election held on March 1, 2016, Justice Guzman won renomination for a second six-year term by defeating Joe Pool, the son of Joe R. Pool, a Democratic U.S. representative from Dallas who died in 1968. She received 1,269,231 votes to Pool's 874,128. In the November 8, 2016 general election, Guzman defeated her Democratic opponent, Savannah Robinson, with 4,884,441 votes, to 3,445,959 for Robinson. Two other contenders, Don Fulton and Jim Chisholm of the Libertarian and Green parties, respectively, polled 304,587 votes and 119,022.
