A special court of review consisting of three court of appeals justices who were defeated in the recent election has exonerated as Harris County district judge whom the State Commission on Judicial Conduct publicly reprimanded for willful and persistent conduct clearly inconsistent with the proper performance of her duties. The judge, 165th District Court Judge Ursula Hall, was likewise defeated in the November election.
Houston [14th] Court of Appeals Chief Justice Tracy Christopher filed a complaint with the Commission in July 2023 after at least 30 petitions for mandamus were filed with the court of appeals complaining of Judge Hall’s repeated failure to rule on motions. Chief Justice Christopher noted that Hall was the only district judge in Harris County with a similar docket who had this kind of record. The Commission agreed that Hall violated Art. V, § 1-a(6)(A), Texas Constitution, and issued a public reprimand.
We won’t go into the details of the special court of review’s ruling, since none of the judges involved will still be on the bench come the new year. Suffice it to say that the court determined that Judge Hall was doing a bang-up job, although one of the state’s best appellate court chief justices, dozens of Harris County attorneys (and no doubt their clients), the Commission staff who investigated the complaint, and the Commission who issued the reprimand, thought otherwise.
We can take some solace in the fact that the voters took care of the matter, but we can’t simply ignore the fact that this situation was allowed to persist for years at the expense of parties who deserve better from their judges. All the more reason that the definition of “willful and persistent conduct clearly inconsistent” with a judge’s duties should be more precisely defined to include a failure to make timely rulings, period. We understand that judges have a lot to do, but we elect them to make hard decisions. While it is true that the rules require a judge to rule within a “reasonable time,” not ruling at all until a party has to force the issue is per se “unreasonable.”
