Grand jury declines to indict Harris County Treasurer Carla Wyatt in vehicle burglary case<\/a><\/p>\nMilliron’s weekend email had the appearance of an official mandate. He called Stafford an officer of the court \u2014 he has been practicing law in Texas since 1973 \u2014 and ordered him to come before his bench to discuss their conversation further. He also included his court coordinator and clerks in the email, suggesting Stafford\u2019s appearance would be added to his schedule.<\/p>\n
Stafford considers the email toothless and not an official order \u2014 a point backed by at least one legal expert. If Milliron\u2019s goal is to hold Stafford in contempt of court, the judge\u2019s communications did not meet the legal threshold, said Thomas Hogan, a South Texas College of Law professor.<\/p>\n
In order to be found in contempt, Stafford would have to either disrupt court proceedings to criticize the jurist or violate a court order as a party in a case, Hogan said.<\/p>\n
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“This is all ridiculous,” Hogan concluded.<\/p>\n
Creating chaos<\/p>\n
As of Thursday, nothing has appeared on Milliron\u2019s 215th District Court docket to suggest a hearing will take place. The judge, who has repeatedly declined to comment, has not rescinded his request or communicated with Stafford since the initial exchange.<\/p>\n
Milliron, who took office in 2025, has deleted his Facebook page, which was flooded with thousands of comments in the fallout of the now-infamous video.<\/p>\n
The brief footage, initially posted to TikTok, showed Milliron clashing with an information-technology worker for the courts who tried to lighten the mood when the judge’s audio problem turned out to be a false alarm. The judge lashed back by ordering him out of his courtroom.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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“I think he just realizes now the chaos he’s created,” Stafford said.<\/p>\n
![\"Judge]()
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Judge Nathan\u00a0Milliron is pictured in 2020 during his run for a congressional seat.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jill Karnicki\/Staff photographer<\/p>\n
Stafford does not plan to show up to court as Milliron demanded, but if he changes his mind, a contingent of Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association members plans to join him.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think criminal defense lawyers saw that initial video and then got our pitch forks out,” said\u00a0Coby DuBose, one of the lawyers at the forefront of the campaign. “When his conduct spilled over into threatening one of our members for something that was just political speech \u2014 that’s when the campaign to get to the bottom of what this judge was doing started.”<\/p>\n
DuBose fired back at the judge by posting about emails purportedly sent between the judge and others, the judge’s past bankruptcy filings and other videos from the court that garnered additional scrutiny. He also posed for a photo outside Milliron’s courtroom Tuesday and went inside as the judge presided over a personal injury trial involving a railyard switchman who had lost his arm.\u00a0DuBose expected similar antics from the viral video, but Milliron’s temperament was mild-mannered.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cI\u2019m sure what we’ve seen is not all of who he is as a judge,\u201d DuBose said.<\/p>\n
The plaintiff’s attorney at the current trial in Milliron’s court, Byron Alfred, said he didn\u2019t think the growing controversy outside the courtroom had become a distraction.<\/p>\n
“I haven’t noticed a loss of focus from Judge Milliron in this case,” Alfred said.<\/p>\n
Alfred doesn’t recall seeing Milliron’s interaction with the county employee during his trial, but another video featured the judge dispatching a deputy to fetch one of the jurors who failed to show up for the proceedings. He then noticed a growing number of visitors in the courtroom on Monday, when his client tearfully testified about losing his limb.<\/p>\n
The attorney didn’t know the purpose for all their visits and only learned of the viral video from a reporter.<\/p>\n
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Political ramifications<\/p>\n
The judge’s communications piqued the interest of at least one state lawmaker, state Rep. Cody Vasut, who mulled mechanisms to remove Milliron from office, if necessary.<\/p>\n
“I don’t like what I’m seeing,” Vasut said. “I’m trying to understand if this is an isolated deal or is it more serious?”<\/p>\n
The Republican lawmaker from Brazoria County went as far as to call\u00a0Milliron’s order to Stafford unlawful and a potential example of oppression. The Legislature could step in to remove Milliron, also a Republican, through the impeachment process, which hasn’t been successful since 1976, when a state district court judge was stripped of his office on corruption charges.<\/p>\n
Hogan didn’t declare outright that Milliron’s behavior was an act of oppression, but he said the judge could escalate the situation further by telling a Harris County deputy to haul Stafford to court if he refuses to appear.<\/p>\n
“He would get in trouble,” Hogan said of the judge, because “you really would be getting into official oppression.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Defense attorney James Stafford speaks during a capital murder trial on Tuesday, April 9, 2024, in Houston. Stafford…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[86133,89934,1505,56,58,57],"class_list":{"0":"post-235063","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-hc-crime","9":"tag-hc-election","10":"tag-hc-politics","11":"tag-houston","12":"tag-houston-headlines","13":"tag-houston-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}