Private Admonition of a District Judge. (11/12/12).
11/12/2012
The judge failed to maintain professional competence in the law when she repeatedly imposed monetary sanctions against the parties during a hearing, without a finding of contempt, and then ordered the parties to either pay the sanctions to a charity or face incarceration. In addition, the judge repeatedly made threats to impose unauthorized monetary sanctions and/or to incarcerate the parties as an intimidation tactic to ensure order in her courtroom. Moreover, the judge failed to perform judicial duties without bias or prejudice, exhibited an improper judicial demeanor, and engaged in a persistent pattern of questioning only the husbands in these hearings in a manner that gave rise to the impression that the judge was assisting the wives in the prosecution of their cases. [Violation of Canons 2A, 3B(2), 3B(4), and 3B(5) of the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct.] Private Admonition of a District Judge. (11/12/12).
