Sounds like “God” dipped into his slush fund.
1 Like
So, I see three possibilities:
-
Someone has something on the judge such as evidence that he has utilized sex workers.
-
Someone paid off the judge and he’s guessing in the current political climate that he can get away with it.
-
The judge is a suffering from an undiagnosed mental health condition characterized in part by extreme religious impulses and the need to act upon them in situations he rationally knows are clearly inappropriate.
All three of these possibilities merit investigation. By whom? No clue. Who polices Texas judges? Nobody? Oh, that’s right.
15 Likes
If a defendant is found not guilty as a result of judicial misconduct, is there anything the prosecution can do? Or does that fall under double jeopardy/one bite of the apple type rules?
1 Like
Texas is a hell of a drug.
3 Likes
Your ignoring the 4th possibility - that God has broken His millennia of silence to save an accused sex trafficker from conviction in a Texas courthouse the only way He could by directly asking the judge in private to try and sway the jury after the trial looked like it was going pear shaped. Just like in the bible.
20 Likes
OK, OK, I’m sorry, really, it seemed funny at the time, and I had the drainpipe right there…
I promise not to pretend to be God anymore.
Or, at least, not to Judges. At least, not in Texas. When I’ve been drinking.
5 Likes
So was she convicted?
You’d be surprised. A lot of evangelicals will claim that they literally are directed by the voice of god.
They say it’s that “still small voice” IE, your subconscious telling you to do what you already want to do.
But they think it’s god.
Isn’t that comforting? The most powerful religious block in the country earnestly and unshakably believe that their impulses come straight from heaven and ignoring them is sinful.
12 Likes
It’s usually called psychosis if you are poor or brown or both.
1 Like
I believe it went down like this:
6 Likes
what WAS I THINKING???
TIL that Texas judges can’t grant a judgment as a matter of law to reverse a jury finding of guilt in criminal cases. That seems crazy to me.
OK, anyone know if Texas has provisions for removing a Judge who is clearly mentally unfit to hold office? He hears voices and acts on them to the detriment of his sworn oath to be neutral.
Good thing “god” didn’t tell him to wipe out everything living in some “heathen” village over in the next state or even to just whip out a gun and shoot nay juror who disagreed with “god’s command”.
I’ll bet he’d be one of the first to condemn Muslims for having religious influence in their Shari-a legal codes.
4 Likes
Probably not much worse that some of the federal judges that have been appointed by 45.
1 Like
Yes, you can appeal based on misconduct by the judge.
Yes. The Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct can bring proceedings before the Texas Supreme Court to have a judge removed from office. Extremely unlikely though.
1 Like
It would appear so:
The judge recused himself from the punishment phase of the trial which you obviously wouldn’t get to unless there was a guilty verdict.
Likewise the DA’s argument seems to be that the judge urged the jurors to do the opposite of what they did so he clearly can’t have influenced them.
Not sure about that myself- I’d have thought there’s plenty of scope for arguing that it’s just as likely that they voted to convict because they were annoyed by the judge telling them to let her off.
Either way, improper interference by a judge in the jury’s deliberations should render any conviction unsafe in my view.
1 Like
This will be commonplace when Trump’s Division of Conscience and Religious Freedom gears up.
Giving people the right to ignore laws because they feel like it have deeply felt religious convictions isn’t the most superest of ideas.
3 Likes
Ah yes, good points, those… My deductive reasoning took the day off I
guess!
Well, what can I say? The Big Guy likes to troll his flock every once in a while.
But if God tells you to jump off a bridge… ?
