Slashdot Mirror


Texas Admonishes Judge For Posting Facebook Updates About Her Trials

An anonymous reader writes: Michelle Slaughter, a Galveston County judge, says she will appeal a public admonition from state officials that criticized her Facebook posts about cases brought before her court. From the article: "The State Commission on Judicial Conduct ordered Michelle Slaughter, a Galveston County judge, to enroll in a four-hour class on the 'proper and ethical use of social media by judges.' The panel concluded that the judge's posts cast 'reasonable doubt' on her impartiality. At the beginning of a high-profile trial last year in which a father was accused of keeping his nine-year-old son in a six-foot by eight-foot wooden box, the judge instructed jurors not to discuss the case against defendant David Wieseckel with anyone. 'Again, this is by any means of communication. So no texting, e-mailing, talking person to person or on the phone or on Facebook. Any of that is absolutely forbidden,' the judge told jurors. But Slaughter didn't take her own advice, leading to her removal from the case and a mistrial. The defendant eventually was acquitted of unlawful-restraint-of-a-child charges."

16 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. Just goes to prove what we knew already by TJ_Phazerhacki · · Score: 2, Insightful

    When it comes to Texans and Judges, they both think the rules apply to somebody else.

    --
    Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!
    1. Re: Just goes to prove what we knew already by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Its about time that someone of "important" was held to the same standards as the "rest of us".

      Now if we could have consistency (both in accountability and sentacing). Here in my area one guy was sentanced to 20 years for pick a bar fight (aggravated assault with some kind of intent) while the same court sentanced a DWI in which someone was killed in a HIT and RUN to 5 years with optional probation at 3 years.

      Justice is still blind but she is starting to realize that not everyone else is.

  2. Texas Judges by Alsee · · Score: 4, Funny

    Michelle Slaughter
    Earl Gallows
    Trigger Winchester
    Otis Hangem
    Billy Bob Guilty

    -

    --
    - - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
  3. In-depth political analysis by stephanruby · · Score: 4, Funny

    I wish to subscribe to her twitter feed.

    I bet that maintaining a Twitter and Facebook presence will help with her re-election campaign.

    Also, she's not bad looking as far as judges go. In American politics, good looks count for a lot.

    Meanwhile, Slaughter emerged on top from a field of four Republicans, which includes Mallia, but she too did not earn the more than 50 percent vote to win her respective race.
    Slaughter accumulated 10,015 votes while Mallia finished the race with 7,654.
    Mallia was first elected as a Democrat in 2000, but switched to the GOP in November.
    Their rivals, Zachary Maloney and Paul Lavalle, combined for approximately 12 percent of the vote.

    Slaughter is actually the perfect name for a judge in Texas. I bet she got 3,000 votes for her last name alone.

    And Maloney sounds too much like baloney, that poor guy was doomed from the start. Why did he even run? I have no idea.

    1. Re:In-depth political analysis by Crashmarik · · Score: 2

      Slaughter is actually the perfect name for a judge in Texas. I bet she got 3,000 votes for her last name alone.

      And Maloney sounds too much like baloney, that poor guy was doomed from the start. Why did he even run? I have no idea.

      Yeah well lets see how see does against Mr. Noose next election.

  4. Guilty of violating the laws of physics by enigma32 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is anyone else curious how the guy fit his [presumably 3-dimensional] son into a two-dimensional (6'x8') "box"?

  5. Reason for not talking to people by BitZtream · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The summary (didn't bother to read the article) doesn't understand the point of not letting jurors talk about the trial to others. Its not so they don't give out trial details to the public, its so the public doesn't give them things from outside the court.

    The judge ISN'T BOUND by that and is in fact REQUIRED BY LAW to hear things first (when requested by attorneys) to verify if its even okay for the jury to hear it. The judge posting on Facebook is not a problem for the trial itself, its just unprofessional, trials are public you know, unless deemed otherwise by the judge.

    Telling the jurors not to talk to others about the case doesn't make it a private case, its just normal to not have the jurors getting data from other places.

    The mistrial was for entirely different reasons if anyone bothered to know anything about the actual trial.

    --
    Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    1. Re:Reason for not talking to people by TWX · · Score: 2

      I was under the impression that until the trial was completed, the judge was supposed to remain impartial to the course of justice and to refraining from coming to judgement about the defendant. Additionally, if the judge is the person that is supposed to convey information and instructions to the jury, and if members of the jury found the judge's posts on the Internet, could that, for legal purposes, be considered the judge addressing this information to those jurors? The jurors are supposed to avoid finding information on their own, but if the very authority that they're beholden to is publishing then I could see how reading that might fall within the letter of the rules for jury service.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    2. Re:Reason for not talking to people by rmdingler · · Score: 2
      Don't post online about current work-related stuff is probably good advice for all of us to take.

      TFA was a bit sketchy on details, but it did seem to indicate her Facebooking had something to do with the mistrial, and eventual acquittal... whether or not this is factually accurate,

      it's probably safe to say this was poor judgement on her part.

      --
      Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

      Ernest Hemingway

    3. Re:Reason for not talking to people by MouseTheLuckyDog · · Score: 2

      It's partially that, it's partially that jurors are not supposed make up their mind till the end of the trial and talking to others tend to make you form opinions.

      A judge is expected to be more disciplined when receiving evidence. For example, in a bench trial a judge will hear all evidence including inadmissible evidence. After all it's not inadmissible until the judge rules it so. The judge is then supposed to be able to ignore the inadmissible evidence when reaching his decision.

      You are also wrong about the mistrial. The judge was remove mainly because of her remarks on the web site. A new judge ruled that changing judges in the middle was grounds for a mistrial. They then had a second trial where the man was acquitted.

      He was acquitted for many reason, the biggest is that it wasn't Harry Potter being kept in the cupboard under the stairs. The kid seems to have had mental problems and a tendency to violence. So the box was the best that his parents could do, and most of the time the door was open.

  6. Re:News about a dumb, selfish bitch. Prob a slut t by TWX · · Score: 4, Funny

    I've always found the use of "slut" in the pejorative to be a curious thing. Don't most single men want a woman that will have sex with them without a whole lot effort and without having to have something as burdensome as a relationship with them in order to get it?

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  7. FTFY by s.petry · · Score: 2

    When it comes to Politicians of all kinds including Judges and Law Enforcement, they both think the rules apply to somebody else.

    Had to fix that for you. You could not have possibly missed out on Baltimore, NYC, Ferguson, California, etc.. etc...

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  8. Re:News about a dumb, selfish bitch. Prob a slut t by Livius · · Score: 2

    Men almost never use the term; women are the ones who say it.

  9. Re:News about a dumb, selfish bitch. Prob a slut t by cold+fjord · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Where are you getting this world view of liberals running around rampant calling conservative women sluts inbetween feminist protests?

    Where indeed?

    Why It's Not Smart to Call Women Conservatives 'Whores'

    When Alan Grayson called a female corporate lobbyist a "K-Street whore" -- and was attacked as crude and sexist at the same time that he was lauded as gutsy and honest -- he played a role in a familiar script: hero of the left (MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, Bill Maher) attacks female villain (Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin) using sexist language. Progressive feminists soul-search about liberal misogyny. Mainstream media talk about sexism for 5 seconds. Then the media move on, and no one learns a thing. Repeat.

    It happened again just two weeks ago, when Olbermann called Malkin a "big mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick on it" during the "Worst Person in the World" segment of Countdown. The creepily fleshy insult followed Olbermann's rendition of Malkin's e-mails....

    So there's obvious problem No. 1 with leftist firebrands dipping into sexist imagery and language to bash conservative women: nothing's more fun than highlighting the hypocrisy of your opponents.

    The war on conservative women

    If I had a dollar for every time libs have called me a "Manila whore" and "Subic Bay bar girl," Iâ(TM)d be able to pay for a ticket to a Hollywood-for-Obama fundraiser. To the HuffPo left, whore is my middle name.

    Self-serving opponents argue that such attacks do not represent "respectable," "mainstream" liberal opinion about their conservative female counterparts. But it was feminist godmother Gloria Steinem who called Texas Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison a "female impersonator." It was NOW leader Patricia Ireland who commanded her flock to only vote for "authentic" female political candidates. It was Al Gore consultant Naomi Wolf who accused the late Jeane Kirkpatrick of being "uninflected by the experiences of the female body."

    It was Matt Taibbi, now of Rolling Stone magazine, who mocked my early championing of the tea party movement by jibing: "Now when I read her stuff, I imagine her narrating her text, book-on-tape style, with a big, hairy set of (redacted) in her mouth. It vastly improves her prose."

    It was Keith Olbermann, then at MSNBC and now at Al Goreâ(TM)s Current TV, who wrote on Twitter that columnist S.E. Cupp was "a perfect demonstration of the necessity of the work Planned Parenthood does" and who called me a "mashed up bag of meat with lipstick on it." He stands by those remarks. Olbermann has been a special guest at the White House.

    Some of us have not forgotten when liberal Wisconsin radio host John "Sly" Sylvester outrageously accused GOP Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch of performing "fellatio on all the talk-show hosts in Milwaukee" and sneered that she had "pulled a train" (a crude phrase for gang sex). (Earlier, he called former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice a "black trophy" and "Aunt Jemima.")

    Or when MSNBC misogynist Ed Schultz called talk show host Laura Ingraham a "talk slut" for criticizing Obamaâ(TM)s petty beer summit. Or when Playboy published a list of the top 10 conservative women who deserved to be "hate-f**ked." The article, which was promoted by Anne Schroeder Mullins at Politico.com, included Ingraham, "The View's" Elisabeth Hasselbeck, former Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino, GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann and others. Yours truly topped the list with the following description: a "highly f**kable Filipina" and âoea regular on Fox News, where her tight body and get-off-my-lawn stare just scream, 'Do me!'"

    And then thereâ(TM)s the leftâ(TM)s war on Sarah Palin, which would require an entire national forest of trees to publish.

    You've got me curious as to how it is that you miss this kind of stuff?

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  10. Re:News about a dumb, selfish bitch. Prob a slut t by cold+fjord · · Score: 2

    Don't most single men want a woman that will have sex with them without a whole lot effort and without having to have something as burdensome as a relationship with them in order to get it?

    Not men with good character.

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  11. Re:News about a dumb, selfish bitch. Prob a slut t by dave420 · · Score: 2

    You do realise that calling someone a whore isn't necessarily sexist, as it simply means "prostitute" - a person willing to perform various favors for money. That is a perfect description of lobbyists, who are paid to do just that. As for Malkin's insane ramblings, they carry no weight, as she has a terrible track record for intentionally causing offence to others through vitriolic and highly vicious language. Calling someone a slut, however, is sexist, as slut specifically means a woman with many casual sexual partners.

    Of course you don't realise it, as you are blinded by the whole left/right spectrum, as it makes things so easy for you. Not having to think for yourself is fun, right?