Judge faces suspension on sex, drug complaints
In an explosive and rare move, Texas judicial authorities on Wednesday asked the Texas Supreme Court to suspend a Harris County justice of the peace accused of paying prostitutes for sex, misusing illegal drugs and ruling unethically in favor of a convicted con man.
The sordid list of accusations against Judge Hilary Green, Justice of the Peace in Houston’s 7th Precinct, was contained in a 316-page court filing by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct to the state’s highest court.
The document describes four separate judicial misconduct complaints against Green made between 2012 and 2016 that were previously not released under commission rules.
In her response to the commission, Green admitted to many of the allegations, including illegally obtaining prescription drugs and using marijuana and ecstasy at the same time she was presiding over lowlevel drug possession cases involving minors in her
court, the records show. She also admitted to sexting a bailiff while on the bench.
“Judge Green’s outright betrayal of the public’s trust warrants her immediate suspension pending formal proceedings,” the filing says.
The Texas Supreme Court has not yet taken action on the suspension request and there is no deadline for it to rule.
The commission filing confirms that the latest misconduct complaint against Green arrived in 2016 from a man who Green has admitted was her extramarital lover, Claude Barnes. Other allegations were made by Green’s ex-husband, former Houston Controller Ronald Green, as part of their divorce.
Green has not responded to the commission’s request she be suspended. But her attorney, Chip Babcock, said he plans to argue that Green cannot be removed from office for alleged misconduct that occurred prior to November 2016, when she was re-elected to office. He argues that her re-election occurred after most of the allegations against her were made public in articles in the Houston Chronicle, or by her opponents during the campaign.
In support of his argument, Babcock cited a Texas state law that says “an officer may not be removed ... for an act the officer committed before election to office.”
Others have interpreted that statute to mean before a public official initially took office, which in Green’s case was in 2007.
But Babcock emphasized in an interview that allegations about Green’s illegal drug use and sexual misconduct came to light in 2015 and 2016 from “her exhusband and an admittedly bitter and angry former companion.” Babcock said that during Green’s 2016 campaign, the bulk of the allegations against her “were aired publicly and after they were aired publicly, Judge Green ran in a contested Democratic Primary against a number of candidates opposing her and defeated them with a substantial amount of the vote and subsequently won the general election.”
Admits to misusing drugs
In his complaint, Barnes describes several occasions when he saw Hilary Green illegally abuse drugs. He claims that during their long-time affair the judge asked him to illegally purchase Tussionex, a prescription cough medicine, on the black market for her. He also describes how he consumed both Ecstacy and marijuana with Green. And he claims that one of Green’s court officers took marijuana from a detainee and gave it to her.
In her commission responses, Green admitted to misusing drugs with Barnes and to a dependence on Tussionex.
In interviews and in sworn statements, Barnes also provided details of two incidents in which he and the judge hired call girls for three-way sex — including an incident involving a woman summoned from Backpage.com in Houston, and another hired while Green was staying in a hotel for a judicial conference in Austin.
Another misconduct complaint, initiated by the commission itself, is based on broader allegations published by the Chronicle in a May 16, 2015 article that described claims made by Ronald Green. In divorce filings, Green alleged his former wife was a prescription drug addict who engaged in several extra-marital affairs.
In divorce papers, Ronald Green also alleged that his wife had lied to the commission in response to two older judicial misconduct complaints related to Judge Green’s relationship with a convicted con man named Dwayne Jordon.
The Houston Chronicle wrote about ethical questions raised about Green’s rulings in Jordon’s favor in 2012. But the commission initially took no action on two related misconduct complaints alleging she had a conflict of interest.
Two different people filed complaints in 2012 alleging that Green had failed to recuse herself from a real estate dispute and eviction matters involving Jordon, a fivetime felon.
In one of those matters, Green’s rulings helped Jordon temporarily seize control of his grandfather’s home from his uncle, who was the rightful heir, through an illegal eviction. By the time the uncle recovered the property rights through a successful appeal, he said Jordon had taken out mortgages in his grandfather’s name and his uncle lost the home to debt. Green has argued that Jordon presented proof of ownership in the form of a deed, according to her responses.
On Wednesday, the commission for the first time revealed that it had dismissed the 2012 complaints only after Green claimed to have no relationship with Jordon outside of court — except for “one time in 2009 or 2010 when my son was invited to a birthday party.”
Removal request
In her responses, Green has said she simply forgot about other occasions when they’d socialized, commission papers show.
But commission officials claim that Green told them several lies as they attempted to investigate the complaints against her, the agency’s filing says. “Judge Green’s pattern of deception to the Commission is incompatible with continuing to serve as a judge.”
The removal request against her is based in part on her own admissions to illegal drug use, lying to the commission and sexting with a court employee and asking him to obtain prescription cough medicine for her, the commission record shows.
“Based on the evidence before it, the Commission concluded that Judge Green engaged in willful violation of the Code of Judicial Conduct, willful and persistent conduct clearly inconsistent with the proper performance of her duties that cast public discredit upon the judiciary and on the administration of justice in the State of Texas,” the filing says.
Most judicial misconduct matters are resolved quietly in Texas behind closed doors. But Green has vowed to publicly fight removal, Babcock said.
Ultimately, commission officials would have to hold a public trial before seeking authority to remove her from the bench — a step that’s very rare in Texas, said Eric Vinson, Executive Director of the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. The last contested formal proceeding in Texas was in 2008.