A group of seasoned Dallas defense attorneys have mounted an unprecedented effort to block a former misdemeanor judge’s return to the bench, saying her history of sanctions makes her unfit to serve.
Etta J. Mullin, who previously presided over two Dallas County misdemeanor criminal courts, is now running in the March 3 Democratic primary for the 195th District Court against incumbent Judge Hector Garza. No Republicans filed for the seat.
In a letter sent to the nearly 800 Dallas County Democratic precinct chairs, the attorneys urged support for Garza and described Mullin’s record as disqualifying for the 195th, which handles felony criminal cases.
“This is not a matter of political disagreement or competing judicial philosophies,” the letter states. “It is a matter of documented judicial misconduct.”
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Mullin didn’t respond to messages from The Dallas Morning News seeking comment.
Attorney Bruce Anton, who helped organize the letter, said the coordinated push reflects broad concern within the defense bar. “I don’t want to see her on the bench ever again,” he said. “It’s frightening to me.”
Anton, who also serves as a Democratic Party precinct chair, said that since getting the first 50 signatures, more lawyers have offered to sign.
The group consists of former judges, prosecutors and presidents of the Dallas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, with experience ranging from five to 56 years.
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Garza, a former prosecutor and defense attorney, is seeking a third full term as judge of the 195th. He was first elected to it during a 2016 special election.
Mullin previously presided over two of the county’s misdemeanor courts. Her first win came in 2010 after defeating Garza and another Democrat in the primary. She lost her reelection bid in 2014. In 2018, she won a different County Criminal Court seat, but lost four years later.
Twice sanctioned by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, Mullin’s record includes these findings:
In 2015, the commission issued a 29-page public reprimand, the harshest sanction available, finding she repeatedly failed to show the “dignity, patience and courtesy expected of a Texas judge.”The panel cited incidents that included ordering a bailiff to handcuff a prosecutor who was eight months pregnant to a chair to prevent the woman from going to get something to eat, leaving the bench without explanation, delaying and resetting cases without cause and forcing lawyers and defendants to spend “inordinate amounts of time — hours and sometimes days — in her courtroom” on matters that could take minutes.In 2022, the commission issued a second public reprimand, citing three specific cases in which she made attorneys and defendants wait for unreasonable amounts of time, set hearings for them with little or no notice, and revoked defendants’ bonds without good reason.
Toby Shook, a prominent criminal defense attorney in Dallas, was among the attorneys who signed the letter. A lawyer for more than 40 years, he said he doesn’t recall another time when local attorneys banded together in a similar effort.
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“I signed because Judge Garza has a proven track record of being fair and even-handed,” Shook wrote in a message to The News. “Felony cases are too serious to be handled by a judge who has twice been sanctioned by the Judicial Conduct Commission.”
Meanwhile, the Stonewall Democrats of Dallas, a political organization representing the interests of LGBTQ community, urged voters in its latest voter guide not to support Mullin or former family court judge Kim Cooks.
Cooks, who is running for the 194th felony criminal court against attorney Desmond Cooks, no relation, and former misdemeanor court judge Peggy Hoffman, received a public warning from the Judicial Conduct Commission in 2018 after it determined she had improperly engaged in a joint election campaign with a juvenile court judge. Cooks could not immediately be reached for comment.