{"id":389964,"date":"2026-07-29T01:23:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T01:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/389964\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T01:23:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T01:23:09","slug":"midland-tx-county-judge-faces-civil-rights-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/389964\/","title":{"rendered":"Midland TX county judge faces civil rights lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

A dispute\u00a0involving Midland County Judge Terry Johnson<\/a> has escalated into legal action. A federal civil rights lawsuit has been filed against Johnson after he released personal identifying information about a Midland resident, accusing him of infringing on the resident\u2019s First and 14th Amendment rights.<\/p>\n

Since the Reporter-Telegram\u2019s initial report, the newspaper has learned that the Midlander whose information Johnson published was Christino \u201cNino\u201d Rodriquez, a far-right social media influencer known for antagonizing government officials around Midland<\/a>. The animosity between Johnson and Rodriquez spilled over onto social media, prompting Johnson to eventually post an arrest warrant for Rodriquez, dated early 2025, on his personal Facebook page. The document \u2014 which Johnson captioned, \u201cConvicted felon trying to be a player\u201d \u2014 showed a mug shot of Rodriquez, as well as his full name, date of birth, Social Security number, driver\u2019s license number, state identification number and identifying tattoos, among other unredacted information. The post has since been deleted.<\/p>\n

Afterward, Midland ISD board member Brandon W. Hodges filed a formal letter with the Midland County Commissioners Court, demanding Johnson\u2019s immediate resignation. A week later, despite having been at odds during school board meetings, Hodges and Rodriquez filed the lawsuit through Dhillon Law Group Inc., a national law firm founded by Harmeet Dhillon, a U.S. assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division. Dhillon is known for opposing COVID-19 restrictions and mail-in voting, her staunch defense of President Donald Trump and her work with the Republican National Committee. Dhillon Law Group partner James E. Trainor III, who is based in Alexandria, Virginia, is representing Hodges and Rodriquez in the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery American should be deeply concerned if a government official can allegedly weaponize confidential government information against a political critic,\u201d Trainor said in a statement. \u201cA Social Security number cannot simply be \u2018taken back\u2019 once it has been exposed to the internet. The harm can last a lifetime. Through this lawsuit, we intend not only to seek justice for our client, but also to reaffirm a fundamental principle of American government: no public official is above the law, and when government power is allegedly used to punish a citizen for exercising constitutional rights, the courts remain the place where accountability is demanded and the rule of law is preserved.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A dispute\u00a0involving Midland County Judge Terry Johnson has escalated into legal action. A federal civil rights lawsuit has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[223,27659,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-389964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-news","tag-pubnow","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389964","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=389964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}