Judge denies recusal in assault trial
Fort Bend official accused of rolling his eyes at child sex abuse victim rejects bias claims
A judge in Fort Bend County on Tuesday disputed the portrayal by prosecutors in court documents that he is biased, citing their anecdotes that he rolled his eyes and showed flashes of anger during a sexual assault trial in August involving delayed reports of abuse.
“More people say I’m stoic — and emotionless,” said Judge Robert Rolnick, addressing concerns from the district attorney’s office that he is adversarial toward accusers who wait years to report sexual abuse.
The behavior that Rolnick allegedly showed during recent proceedings prompted prosecutors to demand his recusal from another sexual abuse case in the 458th District Court, fearing that he would show similar bias during the trial later this month. The aggravated sexual assault of a child indictment against defendant Jeffrey Awalt is also based on an delayed outcry, according to prosecutors. The accuser waited three years to report the abuse, court records show.
“There is indication that you are not the biggest fan of delayed outcries,” prosecutor Baldwin Chin, who wrote the motion to recuse, said in court.
Rolnick slammed Chin’s comment as false and denied the request to recuse himself in Awalt’s case.
Rand Mintzer, one of Awalt’s lawyers, voiced his opposition to the prosecutor’s recusal motion in court because he did not think Rolnick’s comments reflected his opinion on his own client’s case.
The matter is expected to go before the 11th Administrative Judicial Region of Texas to determine whether Rolnick can preside over Awalt’s trial. Fort Bend County District Attorney Brian Middleton said his office intends
to present a motion later this week for the court to review the recusal request if Rolnick does not do so on his own.
Rolnick on Tuesday stood by his handling of the trial involving defendant Gerson Rodriguez and the guilty verdict that jurors handed him last month on an aggravated sexual assault of a child charge. He is expected in October to be sentenced.
As prosecutors urged Rolnick to recuse himself, he again doubted the victim’s complaint and described it as something “she decided to come up with.”
According to testimony, the victim said Rodriguez abused her in 2011 but she did not come forward until 2017, when she was 17. Many children who experience sexual abuse often wait several years to come forward, according to Child USA — a child advocacy group, with those experts saying that they lack the ability to recognize sexual abuse at the time or do not have an adult they feel comfortable telling.
Throughout the trial, prosecutors perceived Rolnick as expressing “visible disbelief in the complainant’s credibility,” according to court documents. He addressed the 12 jurors after the trial and discounted her account of the sexual assault.
The jurors remained at the courthouse in the hours that followed the
verdict to complain to the defense attorney and prosecutors about Rolnick’s remarks. At least one juror heard Rolnick describe Rodriguez’s accuser as “sexually active” at the time of her outcry, even though no evidence was presented to at trial to suggest that was the case.
The administrative judge in April removed a Harris County judge from overseeing the appeal of a child sexual abuse case after prosecutors accused him of making sympathetic comments about the convicted man.
The recusal motion questioned the neutrality of Judge Jason Luong in the 185th District Court and his skepticism over the victim’s credibility. He also remarked that the defendant’s sentence of 25 years for continued sex abuse of a child was too harsh, according to court records. Prosecutors referenced comments that Luong made in February after an acquittal that children often lie and their comments can lead to innocent defendants going to prison.
Both judges, Luong and Rolnick, are outgoing Democrats who lost the primary elections in their respective jurisdictions. At the time of Luong’s recusal, he was facing a primary runoff against a Harris County prosecutor.
Kenneth Williams, a law professor with the South Texas College of Law, noted the rarity for a second Houston-area judge to face a similar recusal attempt in less than a year.
“Judges rarely express their views before their courts,” Williams said. “Sometimes you can read the judge’s facial expressions, body language or rulings that they may not be favorable to one of the litigants but they’re rarely so blatant about their personal feelings.”
Knowing how the administrative judge decided on Luong’s recusal, Rolnick likely will face the same fate, Williams said. Based on the description, he said, the behavior could call into question his impartiality.