Judges’ conduct under question
Complaints say two district judges play favorites with lawyers
Two Harris County stated istrict judges face allegations of favoritism in appointing private defense attorneys to indigent defendants’ cases, according to judicial complaints filed Tuesday with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct.
The complaints take aim at Judges Robert Johnson and Amy Martin, who are accused of repeatedly flouting a state law requiring judges to give priority in case appointments to a local public defender’s offices. Sofar in2020, Johnson and Martin have each appointed only 0.15 percent of their cases to the Harris County Public Defender’s Office, according to county data — much lower than the 20 percent that the agency says it is equipped to handle.
The two judges’ insistence on appointing specific private defense attorneys has overburdened those lawyers’ caseloads, jeopardizing defendants’ rights to quality defense and diminishing trust in the courts, two civil rights groups allege.
“This conduct harms indigent people charged with crimes and creates the appearance of cronyism, further undermining public faith in the courts,” attorneys wrote in the complaint filed by the Texas Fair Defense Project and Texas Civil Rights Project.
Neither of the judges responded to requests for comment. Judges typically do not speak on complaints related to their courts or individual cases, citing judicial canon.
The complaint largely stems from indigent peoples’ right to a quality defense under the Sixth Amendment. The Fair Defense Act in 2001 strengthened that right by
improving the consistency and quality of representation, and the state code was later amended to require courts to give priority appointments to public defenders, who already receive a budget from the county.
The local office has 40 felony trial lawyers to handle appointments in each of the 22 district courts, Chief Public Defender Alex Bunin said. Each criminal district court makes more than 1,600 appointments a year, so the defender’s office should average 320 case appointments from each court, according to the filing.
“It’s not like we have lawyers who have nothing to do,” Bunin said. “The problemis, it’snot a fair systemif it’s not all being applied equally.”
Overall, 94.29 percent of felony district court cases went to appointed attorneys in 2020, and 5.71 percent to the Harris County Public Defender’ s Office, according to data collected by the Harris County Justice Administration Department.
“The problems that we find in these two complaints are pervasive in the Harris County district courts,” said Amanda Woog, executive directorof theTexasFair Defense Project.
Harris County’s criminal courts largely operate their own separate systems for appointing lawyers. Johnson and Martin both use a combination of individual
case assignments, where private attorneys are appointed to act as independent contractors and are compensated with private funds; and limited term assignments, where private attorneys do the same but provide services to defendants for briefer periods of time.
Neither Johnson norMartin have ever stated a reason or found good cause for failing to appoint the public defender’s office to more cases, the complaint alleges. Bunin informed Martin of the priority appointment law on two different occasions, and he informed Johnson of the law once.
The Texas Fair Defense Project and Texas Civil Rights Project said the statistics illuminate problems that occur when attorneys become overburdened with cases: The defendant tends not to have a relationship with assigned counsel and often feels pressured to plead guilty.
“The judges aren’t complying with the law of course, but the point of this is people are sitting in jail during a pandemic because they’re prioritizing private attorneys over a well-funded public defenders’ office,” Woog said.
Martin, a Democrat in office since Jan. 1, 2019, appointed the public defender’s office to two out of 1,319 cases in her court in 2020.
Since she took the bench, Martin has given more than 3,000 appointments to private lawyers. And in 2019 and 2020, she approved close to $1.3 million in funds for private lawyers appointed to her cases, including more than $300,000 to Jerome Godinich and $200,000 to Robert Scott, according to the filing. Godinich co-counseled death penalty cases with Martin prior to her judgeship, the filing notes.
In 2019, Martin appointed 328 defendants to Godinich and 300 clients to Scott in her court. A2014TexasA&M University study found that on average, an attorney can only competently represent 128 clients in felony cases per year.
Johnson, a four-year Democratic judge who is seeking re-election, similarly appointed the public defender’s office in two out of 1,347 cases in 2020.
Since 2017, almost all of Johnson’s 6,000-plus criminal appointments have gone to private lawyers, and in the 2019 to 2020 fiscal year, he approved close to $1 million in payments to private attorneys, including over $150,000 to Patrick Ruzzo and close to $100,000 to EileenMarie Guerinot, the civil rights groups report. That year, Ruzzo took on 233 cases in Johnson’s court, and Guerinot took on 208.