Federal judge comes under fire again
Latino plaintiffs in separate cases want the controversial jurist to recuse himself
Two Latino plaintiffs involved in separate civil rights cases have asked a longtime Houston federal judge — with a record of making comments in court that are perceived as racist and sexist — to recuse himself from their cases.
U.S. District Judge Lynn N. Hughes, a Houston native, has come under fire in the past for making controversial comments on the record. He was appointed by President Ronald Reagan and has served in the Southern District of Texas in Houston since 1985.
Since then, he has drawn praise from some for standing firm on defendant’s rights and civil liberties, and criticism from others for outlandish statements he’s made in court, to plaintiffs, prosecutors, defense lawyers and federal agents that belittle women and center on people’s appearance and improper courtroom attire.
Civil rights lawyer Randall Kallinen and two of his clients, Morgan Grice and Maximo Espinal, on Tuesday assembled with civil rights activists outside the downtown Houston federal courthouse at a news conference to demand that Hughes recuse himself from their cases due to statements he made about women and Latinos.
“If you read the facts and the evidence, I believe that most people will come to the conclusion that he is a racist and sexist, not only by his statements, but by his rulings,” Kallinen said. “Based on the facts, he needs to recuse himself.”
Hughes was assigned as judge in Grice and Espinal’s lawsuits. They are suing different police departments for using excessive force during their arrests in separate cases.
Grice, 39, a Harvard graduate and Hispanic woman, filed a suit against Bellaire police for officers’ conduct during a traffic stop; Espinal, a 42-year-old Army veteran who previously worked for the Harris County Sheriff ’s Office, is suing the city of Houston over a run-in he had with an officer in an unmarked vehicle while he was working a security job.
Both have asked that Hughes rescue himself and that the court assign them new judges due to comments he made about Grice’s appearance and ethnici
ty during a hearing in October 2020.
Hughes, his case manager and the chief federal judge for the district did not respond to requests for comment.
Grice said she was humiliated when Hughes made off-the-cuff remarks implying her gender was not readily apparent. According to a transcript, the judge said, “She appears to be a woman. I’m willing to go with that.” The judge then probed about her ethnic background. She told him she was Mexican and white. She felt demeaned when he said, according to the transcript, “Mexicans look Anglo enough for me.”
Espinal, a native of El Salvador who also has a police abuse case before Hughes, wants the judge to recuse himself because he is also Hispanic and he’s concerned the jurist won’t be impartial.
“He has been emboldened over years and years and years,” Grice said at the news conference. She noted that his lifetime appointment to the bench has given him years to mouth off against women and about people’s racial and ethnic backgrounds, “yet he continues to land on his feet.”
“That emboldens someone to just go up there and be a loose cannon because they know there is no recourse, there (are) no consequences,” Grice said.
Her attorney focused on how off-topic Hughes’ comments were considering the allegations in their lawsuits.
“Why should how Anglo, or white or Caucasian, a person (is), make any difference whatsoever to a judge? That should make no difference,” Kallinen said. “Neither one of the cases involved racial discrimination ... these were excessive force cases, wrongful arrest cases, against police departments.”
“These words are very disturbing.,” Kallinen continued. “And federal judges are appointed for life.”
Hughes denied Grice’s motion to recuse, and she has appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Kallinen said. Kallinen said he expects to hear back on Espinal’s motion in the next few days.
“You cannot do this, you cannot treat people like this,” Espinal said at the press conference. “You cannot judge someone just on who they look like.”
Hughes’ past indiscretions include the time he attributed errors made by the government in a fraud case to a female federal official’s sex, saying “we didn’t let girls do it in the old days.” The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Hughes’ ruling in that case in 2018.
He was criticized by the appellate court in 2013 for his “apparent failure to appreciate racist implications” in a case against Fort Bend ISD involving an official who said, “that if Barack Obama were to be elected president, the Statue of Liberty would have its torch replaced by a piece of fried chicken.”
“We have been before the press before about this very same judge,” said Cynthia Cole, executive director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. “Why is it so difficult to just ask that he does the right thing?”
Shelby Stewart, a retired HPD sergeant and civil rights activist, said at the press conference that Hughes’ conduct on the bench is reprehensible: “This is very embarrassing because it puts a stain on the integrity of the federal courts in Houston.”