HOUSTON -- A judge listened to testimony Thursday to decide if Harris County's top prosecutor should be punished for deleting more than 2,500 e-mails after he was ordered to produce them, KPRC Local 2 reported.

Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal could be fined or jailed if U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt finds him in contempt of court. Rosenthal is expected to testify in the hearing on Friday.

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Video: Demonstrators Demand Rosenthal's Resignation:
Mary Benton Reports

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Rosenthal handed over hundreds of e-mails already and Hoyt mistakenly released numerous e-mails that contained pornographic, racist and political messages, along with love notes between the married prosecutor and his secretary.

The hearing was requested by attorney Lloyd Kelley, who sought the e-mails as part of a civil rights investigation against the Harris County Sheriff's Office.

Kelley said he wants the judge to hold Rosenthal in contempt or sanction him for the destruction of the e-mails.

Rosenthal has said in court documents he thought the 2,500 e-mails he is under order to produce were backed up elsewhere and has called the decision to erase them an error in judgment.

Gary Zallar, who runs the office's computer systems, was grilled for about 2½ hours Thursday about the inner workings of the e-mail program.

He also discussed his discovery that Rosenthal's account contained far fewer e-mails in late November than it had in early November. Despite extensive efforts to retrieve all the e-mails Rosenthal sent and received between July and mid-October, about 2,000 remain missing, he said.

Zallar said the e-mails could not be recovered. He said the district attorney's backup system only saves messages for about five days.

"I can see they roughly do a 10-day backup and it's all for disaster recovery. It has nothing to do with anything else by disaster recovery," Zallar said.

Hoyt briefly released to the media one batch of e-mails that included the affectionate notes. He later re-sealed the e-mails, saying he had only intended to make public Rosenthal's request that they be kept confidential.

Rosenthal's general counsel Scott Durphy told Hoyt that he learned the e-mails had been destroyed on Nov. 26 -- 21 days after Rosenthal deleted them.

Hoyt asked Durphy, "Did you recognize he has a duty to maintain and preserve documents when requested by a subpoena whether he agrees with it or not?"

"Yes," Durphy said.

"Do you recognize you have a duty to advise him of that?" Hoyt asked.

"I recognize that is a duty. That is something I should have done," Durphy said.

"This is not something that would be foreign to a practicing attorney?" Hoyt asked.

"It would not," Durphy replied.

Kelley cross-examined Durphy in a heated exchange that led Durphy to tell Kelley to stop yelling at him.

Rosenthal's secretary, Kerry Stevens, Harris County Sheriff Tommy Thomas and the county's chief executive, Ed Emmett, were expected to testify.

Kelley said he also wanted to question Kelly Siegler, the assistant district attorney vying to replace Rosenthal, and her husband, Sam, who forwarded Rosenthal some of the offensive notes.

Rosenthal's lawyer has said he wants to question the plaintiff's attorney and a television reporter who broke the story about the racially and sexually explicit messages.

Protesters Demand Resignation

Since the e-mails were released, the Republican district attorney has been forced to abort his re-election bid and has faced almost daily calls to resign since those notes were made public.

More than 150 protesters, including religious, community and political leaders, gathered in front of the Harris County Courthouse, and demanded Rosenthal's resignation.

They carried black and white signs, including "Rosenthal Is The Symptom: Cure The Disease," "We Need A New District Attorney" and "No Racist DA."

To demonstrators, the e-mails were proof of their belief that the district attorney's office treats blacks differently than whites in a city that is nearly one-third black.

"We've seen the racist e-mails. We know what he thinks about us," said James M. Douglas of the local NAACP. "We don't have confidence in the district attorney. Chuck Rosenthal needs to go."

Community leaders at the rally said they were working to file a court petition to have Rosenthal removed from office. They also demanded a federal investigation of cases the prosecutor's office has handled.

The protesters then marched 12 blocks to the federal courthouse, accompanied by mounted police who halted traffic for them.

Dozens slowly and silently filtered into the federal courtroom shortly after the lunch break, as the general counsel for the district attorney's office answered questions from the judge about his involvement in gathering Rosenthal's e-mails.

The protesters, led by community activist Quanell X, rallied outside the Harris County courthouse before marching to the federal courthouse.

Rosenthal, who was first elected in 2000, presides over an office that sends more convicts to death row than any other prosecutors' office in the nation.