Montgomery County district court judge reprimanded by state commission for bias, court conduct
From Conroe Courier By Brandon K. Scott | Posted: Friday, May 1, 2015 5:53 pm
Montgomery County district court judge reprimanded by state commission for bias, court conduct
Seiler
The Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct ordered a Montgomery County district court judge to undergo four hours of instruction with a mentor judge after reprimanding him last month.
The commission published its report April 24, deciding 435th state District Court Judge Michael Seiler will receive instruction on the appropriate treatment of attorneys, witnesses and others the judge deals with in an official capacity; avoiding bias and the appearance of bias; and avoiding extrajudicial conduct that casts doubt on a judge’s capacity to act impartially, or interferes with the proper performance of the judge’s duties.
Seiler came under public criticism last fall after a spate of recusal motions led to him being ordered off nearly a dozen civil commitment cases, which the court was designed to hear when it was created by the Texas Legislature in 2007.
The commission’s report comes just a day after the Texas Senate passed a bill to overhaul the program, a move that would strip Seiler of sole jurisdiction on hearing civil commitment cases.
Also on April 23, the 9th Court of Appeals in Beaumont reversed Seiler’s decision denying a petition for release from the state’s civil commitment program for violent sexual predators.
The appeals court found that Seiler incorrectly found the petition to be frivolous and remanded the case back to Seiler’s court.
The Texas Legislature created the 435th court in 2007 for the specific purpose of holding jury trials to determine the civil commitment of sexually violent predators released from prison. Seiler was elected to that bench the following year and has been the only judge to preside over the court since its inception.
Seiler won a Republican primary runoff against Scott Goleman in 2008 to head the 435th and then was appointed by Gov. Rick Perry to take its bench a few months early. He ran unopposed in 2012 and will be up for re-election in 2016.
Treatment of attorneys, witnesses
The commission concluded that Seiler was less than patient, dignified and courteous in how he treated attorneys from the State Counsel for Offenders office, as well as one of its expert witnesses.
According to the commission’s report from information taken from court transcripts:
• In the jury’s presence, Seiler made comments to attorney Barbara Corley in March 2012 that Corley was wasting everyone’s time, had a law degree and needed to use it, and that her ability to practice law was frustrating him.
• Several months later, Seiler threatened to throw Corley out of the courtroom for making an objection at a hearing on motions to modify the civil commitment terms of 46 predators, all of whom were brought to the courtroom from prison.
Seiler had met separately with Corley and the prosecutor to have any objections filed in writing, but Corley made an objection in court anyway.
• Another attorney was threatened by Seiler to be thrown out of the courtroom in October 2012. He told attorney Lindsey Lopez, “You don’t have to like me, you don’t have to respect me, but you’ve got to follow my orders. And if you’re not going to do that, I’m going to have you thrown out of my courtroom.”
When Seiler testified before the commission April 8, he said the threats of throwing Corley and Lopez out of the courtroom were means of maintaining order and control of the courtroom, but that he would not have followed through on the threats.
• In 2008, early in Seiler’s time on the bench, he told attorney Randall Miller that he would soon not have a “job in this county” if he continued asking a jury panel questions regarding views on homosexuality.
Miller was representing an offender alleged to have engaged in homosexual activities. Seiler, anticipating Miller was trying to strike the entire panel, said, “Nobody here is going to admit to liking homosexuals,” according to the commission.
‘Disrespect and antagonism’
An order for Seiler’s recusal in the criminal violation of a civil commitment case against Joseph Calzada was granted Sept. 4, 2104, by Senior Judge Sharolyn Wood. The same attorney, Nancy Bunin, was again successful in having Seiler ordered off the James Richards civil commitment case Oct. 30, 2014.
As The Courier previously reported, Erin Faseler, the special prosecutor at a Jan. 6 recusal hearing, decided not to take a position either way regarding whether Seiler should be ordered off cases.
Dr. John Tennison, a psychiatric physician who has provided expert testimony with Seiler presiding in roughly 20 cases, testified it was “unequivocally the case that Judge Seiler” treated him disrespectfully and that the judge sometimes yelled and made inappropriate inferences to the physician’s sexuality or marital status.
Tennison’s role in the civil commitment process is to provide medical opinions on whether a respondent suffers from a behavior abnormality as defined by law.
The Health and Safety Code states that a small but extremely dangerous group of sexually violent predators exists and that those predators have a behavioral abnormality that is not amenable to traditional mental illness treatment modalities, therefore making them likely to engage in repeated predatory acts of sexual violence.
Tennison said the judge was frequently impatient when expert testimony required nuanced answers and that Seiler even ordered him to remove reference notes in some cases.
“Judge Seiler frequently has not been courteous,” Tennison testified Jan. 6. “The magnitude of disrespect and antagonism by Judge Seiler is unmatched and unequal from any other judge I’ve ever interacted with.”
Attorney: Commission’s ruling is unfair
Seiler has declined to comment on stories written about the issues in the 435th, but his attorney Thomas Watkins told The Courier Friday that he probably would appeal the commission’s ruling.
Watkins, when reached by phone, stipulated that his comments did not necessarily reflect those of Seiler.
“Judge Seiler has the worst docket of any judge in the state of Texas,” Watkins said. “He deals with twice-convicted sexual predators day in and day out, hears loads of stuff that most people couldn’t stand to listen to for more than three days.”
Watkins said the same state-funded attorneys prosecuting and defending the civil commitment cases appear before Seiler over and over again, likening the situation to hearing the same case for an entire year.
Watkins disagrees with the state commission that Seiler was too rough on the attorneys. He blames the commission’s aspirations for judges to be patient, which he says is not clearly defined.
Watkins also blames lawmakers for establishing a sole jurisdictional court for civil commitment cases from the very beginning.
“The real culprit, if there is one, is the state Legislature who passed a system which creates this situation that doesn’t work,” Watkins said. “I think they are going to try to fix it, but I don’t know if it’s going to come out of the Legislature this session or not.”
Court’s future
The Montgomery County Board of Judges voted in September that Seiler would only hear civil commitment cases and violations of civil commitment.
There would be no additional criminal cases as of Oct. 1, Director of Court Administration Nate Jensen told The Courier in January.
The decision, however, was based on the courts specializing in certain types of cases rather than the flurry of defense motions granted against Seiler.
But with legislation pending that could force civil commitment cases out of the 435th, it could force the board of judges to reconsider specializing the 435th to once again hear criminal cases.
Seiler’s $125,000 annual salary is paid by the state, which funds $236,116 in 2015, up $8,000 from the previous fiscal year. The state allotment pays for additional staff in the court.
Montgomery County is funding $251,123 in the 435th this year, up more than $29,000 from two years ago. The county’s portion pays for department head salary, benefits for employees, supplies and travel expenses for the court.
The court has been a discussion topic for the board in executive session.
An agenda for the board’s May 8 meeting will not be finalized until May 5.
“This is my opinion and not from Judge Seiler, but he would just as soon be a regular district court judge and have a regular docket than have to go through this stuff again and again, based on a flawed system created by the Legislature with demands on the district court judge to do things a human being ought not have to do,” Watkins said. “We think that this reprimand is unfair.
“If the voters of Montgomery County understand that he’s being reprimanded because he has been demanding of lawyers, he’s likely to get re-elected.”
