David Slayton, the former top administrative official for Texas courts, said during the early stages of the court emergency spurred by the pandemic, he fielded daily phone calls from judges saying “Please tell us what to do.”

“I will tell you in Texas, I had never heard those words put together from a judge. But they didn’t know what to do. They didn’t know how to respond and they needed guidance,” Slayton said. “The other thing I heard them say was, ‘Please do not give us discretion’ — again, words I had never heard before, either.”

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