Panel declines to discipline judge over slur to defendants
State Commission on Judicial Conduct has declined to discipline a judge who referred to Latino defendants as “wetbacks,” calling his comments “not necessarily appropriate” but also not punishable.
“I’m stunned,” said Emily Miller, the defense attorney who filed the complaint. “It’s 2023, not 1953. If using a racial slur against a litigant is not sanctionable, then I don’t really know what is.”
The complaint stems from a conversation Miller had with Judge Allen Amos, who was at the time overseeing cases of people arrested on state criminal charges under Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s border crackdown, Operation Lone Star.
The initiative targets migrants suspected of crossing the border illegally.
The judge and the defense attorney had run into each other one day in court and were having a casual conversation during which Amos told Miller that the defendants coming through his court were not “your regular wetbacks,” according to the complaint.
“They have phones and clothes and all kinds of other things,” the then-80-year-old Amos told Miller, as she recounted in her complaint. “I took that to mean that he believes the defendants are affluent and not really indigent.”
On the contrary, Miller said her former clients in some cases spent their life savings to come to this country and give their families a better life.
She said she did not share Amos’ comments with her clients, who were awaiting outcomes to their cases from jail, as she did not want to add to their stress.
Amos, a former Concho County judge picked by the Kinney County judge to adjudicate Operation Lone Star cases in his southwest border town courtroom, did not respond to a request for comment.
The judicial commission’s executive director, Jacqueline Habersham, declined to comment on behalf of herself and the rest of the panel.
Miller transferred her Operation Lone Star cases to other attorneys after filing the complaint against Amos last summer as a precautionary measure to ensure her clients did not face bias from judges because of it.
Amos no longer presides over Operation Lone Star cases and stopped receiving assignments to the cases around the time of the complaint, although it was unclear whether that was the reason for his absence.
County officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Under the border program, state police and National Guard members have arrested thousands of migrants on state offenses, such as trespassing or human smuggling.
Abbott has said the historic multibillion-dollar effort is necessary to make up for the Bithe
den administration’s inadequate immigration enforcement.
The commission’s dismissal letter, dated June 13 and obtained by Hearst Newspapers, did not explain why the issue “did not rise to the level of sanctionable misconduct.”
“In conformity with the specific constitutional provisions, statutes and canons, which control the Commission’s actions in this matter, the commission voted to dismiss your complaint, but has made the judge aware of your concerns,” the letter read. “The commission remains confident that the conduct will not occur in the future.”
Miller said she plans to file a request for reconsideration by the commission.
‘Very little oversight’
“It tells us there is very little oversight,” Miller said about the commission’s decision. “It’s a hideous commentary on this judge, on the commission, and the fact that he was ever allowed to serve in an OLS panel.”
The decision by the commission conflicts with its 2020 decision to discipline a judge for using the same racial slur.
In December 2020, the commission admonished Senior District Judge Mark R. Luitjen, who was acting as a Bexar County visiting judge at the time, after he used that word and a comparable slur in Spanish to describe undocumented immigrants in court.
The commission ordered Luitjen to take two hours of additional education with a mentor and receive racial sensitivity training as part of his normal judicial instruction the following year.
Eligibility questioned
Last year, Hearst Newspapers reported on questions surrounding Amos’ eligibility after a legal opinion by the since-impeached Attorney General Ken Paxton found that constitutional county judges are ineligible to serve as visiting judges under state law.
This year, however, the Legislature passed a bill that Abbott signed contradicting that opinion, and cementing in state law that county judges are indeed eligible.
“It took available folks off the table that could fill in when needed,” bill author Rep. Andrew Murr, R-junction, said about the AG opinion, adding that for that reason HB 103 will “be very beneficial.”
Despite the name, county judges do not always have judicial duties. In larger counties, the judges primarily oversee the commissioners court and handle countywide policy issues. In smaller counties, they are more likely to also preside over misdemeanor criminal and small civil cases, probate matters and appeals from the Justice of the Peace Court.
County judges are not required to be lawyers.
Under Murr’s bill, county judges who are attorneys must hold the position for four years before they can act as visiting judges; those who haven’t must have served as a county judge for eight years.
Prior to the legal opinion, Amos had decided hundreds of Operation Lone Star cases, though attorneys representing defendants in those cases had questioned his eligibility.