Don't make excuses for bad choices by Harris County judges

The truth about Harris County judges misleading the courts and intentionally violating the constitutional rights of defendants before them is finally coming out.

When Texas state Sen. John Whitmire filed a complaint with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct against Harris County's magistrate judges, they defended themselves by saying the elected judges directed them to deny personal bonds, which the judges themselves at first denied. The magistrates were sanctioned anyway, and sources in this must-read Houston Chronicle story by Gabrielle Banks suggested that the Commission is likely now investigating the judges who gave those orders, which is basically all of them.

During the case before Judge Rosenthal, the county claimed they could come up with no evidence that judges directed magistrates. But when the magistrates were accused of misconduct, they produced 600 pages of evidence in that regard that implicated many current and former judges.

Now we know for certain the policies were explicit, widespread, and top-down. This wasn't a case of rogue magistrates denying bond without the knowledge of the judges. This is a case of magistrates serving as dependent vassals with no capacity for independent decision making whatsoever. And they obviously weren't too keen on revealing that truth to the federal judge presiding over the case, who justifiably felt blind-sided when representations made in the magistrate's disciplinary case flat-out contradicted those made in her court.

Finally, I couldn't disagree more with Grits contributing writer Sandra Guerra Thompson, who was quoted in the story thusly:

"I'm not sure the judges intended to do anything inappropriate in giving those instructions," said Sandra Guerra Thompson, director of the Criminal Justice Institute at the University of Houston Law Center. "I think this is part of the history - misunderstanding that magistrates are not the clerks of the judges. They are themselves hired to be independent judges."

That's giving them way too much credit, and cover. Since Grits first focused on bail questions in Houston back in 2005, the failure to grant personal bonds has been the central problem and it's been patently obvious for years that local elected judges were the culprits behind it. There's no "misunderstanding," it was intentional, and an abuse of power. That's why it took the federal courts to change things.

The idea that there was a structural, "cant get there from here" problem was always a lie. There's really no reason now for the press or advocates to pretend otherwise.

MORE: I should have called out Judge Michael McSpadden's comments from the story, too, and the more I look at them the more I think they deserve an addendum:

State District Judge Michael McSpadden, a long-serving jurist in Harris County, said he also had a no-bond policy for magistrates for at least a dozen years because he didn't trust the lower-level jurists not to make errors. 

"Almost everybody we see here has been tainted in some way before we see them," he said. "They're not good risks." 

The judge said he was concerned defendants would be released on bond only to be arrested on another offense. Many had casual attitudes about showing up for court, he said. 

"The young black men - and it's primarily young black men rather than young black women - charged with felony offenses, they're not getting good advice from their parents," he said. "Who do they get advice from? Rag-tag organizations like Black Lives Matter, which tell you, 'Resist police,' which is the worst thing in the world you could tell a young black man ... They teach contempt for the police, for the whole justice system."

Let's be clear: A) This was happening for DECADES before Black Lives Matter was on the scene, and B) the county NOT letting defendants be advised by lawyers at bail hearings was a big part of the suit! In fact, the county has now begun providing lawyers at bail hearings, so this is the first time they're being advised by anybody.

It wasn't Black Lives Matter or defendants' families causing their dilemma, it was people like Judge McSpadden, who clearly has lost the ability to make individualized judgments in these cases, if he ever possessed it.

AND MORE: ACLU of Texas has called for Judge McSpadden's ouster based on these comments, calling on the State Commission on Judicial Conduct to remove him. Said ACLUTX's Terri Burke, "When a sitting judge feels comfortable enough to admit openly and on the record that he uses bail orders to jail black defendants on the assumption they can't be trusted, it's time to take action. This kind of flagrant racism has no place in our justice system." That said, Grits considers it far more likely that voters will remove McSpadden in November than that the SCJC will do so any time soon. He's facing a reasonably strong candidate, and Harris County judicial races appear poised to flip en masse from red to blue. OTOH, the SCJC couldn't possibly remove McSpadden by the end of the year, and based on its history, is unlikely to remove him at all.