Opinion ID: 1760996
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Effect of Election Subsequent to Acts of Misconduct

Text: As heretofore indicated, substantially all of the misconduct set forth above occurred prior to November 5, 1974, when Judge Carrillo was re-elected to the office of district judge. He insists that Article 5986, V.A.C.S. is applicable. It reads: No officer in this State shall be removed from office for any act he may have committed prior to his election to office. We have heretofore held that the above statute does not apply to the office of district judge. In re Brown and In re Laughlin, supra . Section 7 of Article XV of the Texas Constitution authorizes the Legislature to provide for the removal of officers for whom the methods of removal are not provided in the Constitution. This proceeding for removal is authorized by the Constitution, and for that reason Article 5986 is not applicable. The spirit of that Article, however, was applied by this Court in a proceeding to remove a district judge pursuant to Section 6 of Article XV in the case of In re Laughlin, 153 Tex. 183, 265 S.W.2d 805, 808 (1954). The rule was there stated: Neither may removal [of judges] be predicated upon acts antedating election, not in themselves disqualifying under the Constitution and laws of this State, when such acts were a matter of public record or otherwise known to the electors and were sanctioned and approved or forgiven by them at the election. This holding is in harmony with the public policy declared by the Legislature with respect to other public officials. Article 5986, R.C. S. In Brown, supra, we recognized that the sound rationale for this doctrine is that the public, as the ultimate judge and jury in a democratic society, can choose to forgive the misconduct of an elected official if the public knows about such misconduct prior to the election. If, on the other hand, the misconduct is unknown to the public prior to the election and is of such willful nature as to cast public discredit upon the judiciary, it cannot be said that the judge was forgiven by his election or re-election. In the present case there is no evidence whatever that the misconduct of Judge Carrillo was known to the public prior to his election on November 5, 1974. Until these proceedings and the impeachment proceedings were commenced, the record shows that the acts of misconduct were concealed from the public. They were not matters of public record, and it cannot be said that they were acts which were forgiven by the electorate when they voted for Judge Carrillo on November 5, 1974. We hold that the willful and persistent acts of misconduct committed by Judge Carrillo prior to his last election were such as to cast just as much public discredit upon the judiciary as if they had been committed after the election; and they were not in any manner absolved by his election.