Court Opinion

ID: 9718135
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:17:34.816791+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:57.535980
License: Public Domain

HOLMAN, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I concur in the Tribunal’s opinion and judgment ordering Respondent’s removal from judicial office. I respectfully dissent only to the extent that the opinion and judgment do not also preclude Respondent’s eventual return to judicial office. The record in this case persuasively compels a judgment that not only removes Respondent from judicial office now but also prohibits him from holding judicial office in the future and from sitting as a judge on a court of this State by assignment. See Tex. Const, art. 5, § 1-a (6)(C).
Unrefuted evidence portrays Respondent presiding in open court on the occasions specified in the complaint against him, acting in a manner clearly inconsistent with a decorous and dignified performance of judicial duties as he willfully made lewd, vulgar, and demeaning remarks and gestures to female attorneys. Plainly, that style of conduct has been a hallmark of Respondent’s judicial demean- or and temperament. When oral argument of this case was presented to the Tribunal, that particular conduct was alluded to as sexual harassment, a characterization that Respondent did not disavow. However, the Tribunal’s opinion makes clear that the question of whether the conduct meets a legal definition of sexual harassment is not before us, for the behavior simply violates Texas Code of Judicial Conduct Canons 3B (3), (4), and (6).
Respondent’s willfulness in that conduct at the times specified in the complaint and found by the Commission to have occurred displayed his gross indifference to whether any of the women, whose litigation was subject to his rulings, thought his behavior offensive or intimidating. Such behavior by a judge, holder of a judicial office symbolic of honor and justice, debases any courtroom proceeding where the conduct occurs. Respondent concedes that he also made vulgar remarks to female attorneys during a social event outside of court. And whenever and wherever a judge’s public demeanor includes instances of vulgar behavior like that complained of in this case, it tarnishes not only the offending judge, it effectively casts public discredit upon the judiciary and the administration of justice. More than two decades ago, the Texas Supreme Court acknowledged that public disrespect for judicial office and the judiciary in general may be caused by a judge’s willful or persistent intemperate personal conduct whether on or off the bench. See Matter of Carrillo, 542 S.W.2d 105, 111 (Tex.1976).
Respondent asserts that he no longer makes vulgar and demeaning remarks or gestures to female attorneys in court or at social events out of court and that he will not act that way in the future. Nevertheless, during oral arguments before this Tribunal, Respondent conceded and the parties stipulated that the instant case is not the first time a complaint has been filed at the Commission against him for *562using vulgar language while presiding in open court. An earlier case that was grounded upon complaints about Respondent’s profane and vulgar remarks to probationers appearing in his court, ended in 1994 when the Commission issued Respondent a Private Warning that “words of profanity or vulgarity are not appropriate for the bench in open court.” The evidence in the current case demonstrates that Respondent did not heed the warning.
Accordingly, I respectfully submit that the Tribunal’s judgment in this case should not only order Respondent’s removal from judicial office, it also should prohibit him from holding judicial office in the future and from sitting by assignment as a judge on a court of this State.
WRIGHT, J., joins in this concurrence and dissent.