Private Admonition of a former Justice of the Peace. (05/09/11)
05/09/2011
The judge failed to comply with the law and failed to maintain professional competence in the law when he: (1) ordered various individuals in his court into "timeout", and ordered his bailiff to handcuff two individuals when they tried to leave during the "timeout" period; (2) attempted to mediate a dispute between two roommates in a matter that was not pending in his court; (3) allowed tenants in eviction cases to "cure" defaults in their rental obligations, in contravention of the parties' rental agreements; and (4) held a show cause hearing in which he summoned a landlord's attorneys back to court after losing jurisdiction in an eviction case, threatened to sanction the attorneys for allegedly acting in bad faith, and thereafter issued a public memorandum chastising one of the attorneys for his conduct in the case. [Violation of Canons 2A and 3B(2) of the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct.] Private Admonition of a former Justice of the Peace. (05/09/11).
