Contempt order latest twist in fracas around Galveston judge
By Harvey Rice | Friday, October 12, 2012 | Updated: Friday, October 12, 2012 9:48pm
GALVESTON — Possibly for the first time in Texas jurisprudence, a judge has held another judge in contempt of court.
The contempt order issued Wednesday by Galveston County Court Judge Christopher Dupuy is the latest move in a courthouse fracas that has led to multiple ethics complaints and a renewed effort to have Dupuy removed from office. Dupuy said he held Associate Judge Suzanne Radcliffe in contempt because she violated his order banning her from practicing family law.
“I’ve been in practice 26 years and I’ve never seen it,” said attorney Greg Enos, whose legal theory is partially responsible for the courthouse conflict. “I did a little research in Texas case law and couldn’t find any examples where a sitting judge was held in contempt.”
Dupuy, who has been the target of complaints by attorneys in the past, started the ruckus last month with an email to lawyers for the county and the district clerk asking for Texas Rangers and “Texas judiciary” to investigate Family Court Judge Janice Yarbrough, Radcliffe and Radcliffe’s office mate, attorney Lori Laird.
The accusations in the email he titled, “Investigation of Galveston County’s Dirty Little Family Law Court Secrets,” increased the turmoil engulfing Dupuy since his election in 2010. The judge is already defending three malpractice lawsuits and struggling with a bankruptcy in which he seeks to discharge the amounts sought in the lawsuits. His clashes with attorneys in his court and other judges have repeatedly made headlines.
In the email, he said Yarbrough “has granted her cronies and political friends preferential treatment,” referring to Rad-cliffe and Laird.
Dupuy said in the email that “dozens if not hundreds” of cases in which Radcliffe and Laird served as attorneys were void because of Yarbrough’s policies.
“Hundreds of thousands of dollars may have been funneled through the court, or with the court’s blessings, to the judge’s friend and appointee, Suzanne Radcliffe, as fees,” the email said.
“It’s so preposterous, it’s fiction beyond imagination,” Laird said. “There is no possible way Judge Dupuy could believe that to be true.”
Radcliffe could not be reached for comment, but Yarbrough and Laird each said they had filed ethics complaints against Dupuy with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. Laird is accusing Dupuy of using his office to intimidate and harass her and other attorneys.
Yarbrough said the accusations were false. She said she notified the Judicial Conduct Commission, as well as local and regional administrative judges, as soon as a county lawyer forwarded her a copy.
Dupuy said he sent the email because it was time to right a wrong. “The issue is about fairness, it’s about doing the right thing,” he said.
At issue is a standing order issued in 1998 while Yarbrough was an assistant family court judge. The order governs associate judges, part-time judges who continue to work as attorneys and are appointed by the family court judge. To avoid an appearance of favoritism, cases handled by associate judges as attorneys must be transferred to another court.
Yarbrough said as an extra precaution, she extended that rule to Laird because Laird shares office space with Radcliffe.
The issue ignited Dupuy’s email after one of Laird’s cases was transferred to Dupuy’s court. The opposing attorney was Enos, who argued that although Laird and Yarbrough were not engaged in wrongdoing, the 1998 order allowed clients who didn’t want to appear before Yarbrough to avoid her by hiring Radcliffe or Laird.
He said avoiding a judge was the same as forum shopping, a term usually used to describe an effort to get a case before a sympathetic judge.
Dupuy agreed with Enos that the argument applied to Laird as well as the associate judge, and sent the case back to Yarbrough. Dupuy sent the email Sept. 17.
Enos, who publishes The Mongoose legal newsletter, said he intended to disavow any association with Dupuy’s email in the next issue. In a rough draft sent to the Houston Chronicle, Enos writes that Dupuy’s email “is in important parts flat wrong and his email about a fellow judge is unseemly and undignified.”
Dupuy has since ordered Radcliffe to stop practicing family law in Galveston County and this week held her and Laird in contempt.
Laird has joined other attorneys seeking to oust Dupuy. “I refuse to be bullied by him. Period,” she said via email.
ORIGINAL SOURCE: HOUSTON CHRONICLE http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Contempt-order-latest-twist-in-fracas-around-3944308.php
Remove Christopher Dupuy from County Court 3 