Sanction: Texas Judge Interfered in Cases to Help His Ex-Court Coordinator, Who's Now District Clerk

“He was inappropriately interfering in the judicial function of my office and my court, and I told him as much,” said retired Wood County Judge Bryan Jeanes, who filed a judicial complaint against 402nd District Judge Jeffrey Fletcher of Wood County. “He was crossing a barrier by trying to handle cases to benefit his court administrator.”

August 14, 2019 at 03:12 PM

9 minute read

By Angela Morris

Judges are not supposed to use their power to advance personal interests.

But that’s what 402nd District Judge Jeffrey Fletcher of Wood County did, according to the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct, which issued a private warning saying the judge “lent the prestige of his judicial office to advance the private interests of his court administrator and her family.”

Fletcher interfered in a probate matter, trying to get a hearing expedited, because the delay was negatively impacting a relative of his then-court coordinator Donna Huston, according to former Wood County Judge Bryan Jeanes, who filed the complaint behind Fletcher’s sanction. He also interfered in a DWI case against Huston’s sister, trying to get it transferred into his court, so he could “chew her ass out” and give her no special treatment, according to the complaint.

When asked to comment about the private warning, Fletcher hung up on Texas Lawyer and didn’t return subsequent calls or an email seeking comment.

His former court administrator, Huston, has since risen to public office, having been elected Wood County district clerk in 2018. She declined to comment.

The Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct issued the private warning to Fletcher last summer, but the facts are just coming to light because of the downfall of another public official, Wood County Criminal District Attorney Jim Wheeler.

Wheeler resigned as district attorney in October 2018 to avoid being prosecuted for Class A misdemeanor official oppression for allegedly sexually harassing his first assistant district attorney, Angela Albers, according to disclosures uncovered through a Texas Public Information Act request.

But the investigation report that led to his resignation also showed that Wheeler had raised his own concerns about Fletcher. It showed Wheeler had talked with the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Texas Ranger Division about the judge’s alleged improper interference in a DWI case that Albers was prosecuting within another judge’s court.

Wheeler had also spoken to the former judge, Jeanes, in November 2017 about “a possible Whistleblower Act violation and possibly even an official oppression question,” the complaint said, involving “improper communication between the district judge and one of his prosecutors.”

That prosecutor, Albers, is the same one who accused Wheeler of sexual misconduct. But at the time, Wheeler allegedly told Jeanes he thought Albers was experiencing a hostile work environment because of her conversations with Fletcher and Huston, said the complaint.

Wheeler’s office recused itself from the DWI case, and Jeanes appointed an attorney pro tem.

Albers told Texas Lawyer it was Wheeler’s decision to recuse the office, and declined to comment about the conversations with Fletcher and Huston that had allegedly created the hostile work environment.

Multiple complaints

Jeanes’ judicial conduct complaint shows Wheeler wasn’t the only local official allegedly concerned about Fletcher’s judicial conduct and that the DWI wasn’t the only case in which the judge allegedly meddled.

“He was inappropriately interfering in the judicial function of my office and my court, and I told him as much,” said Jeanes, who served 12 years as the county’s nonlawyer constitutional county court judge before retiring in 2018. “He was crossing a barrier by trying to handle cases to benefit his court administrator.”

Jeanes’ complaint, which the retired judge emailed to Texas Lawyer, claimed Fletcher’s first interference in Jeanes’ court was in a probate matter in the fall of 2017.

Read the complaint:

“Fletcher came to my office and requested that this same hearing be expedited, if at all possible, because his Court Administrator Donna Huston was concerned about a relative of hers being negatively affected by the hearing delay,” the complaint said.

Huston called Jeanes’ court coordinator asking for a quicker hearing, and later, Fletcher approached the coordinator in a parking lot, asking her to email Jeanes’ court orders, according to the complaint.

Also, an attorney in the probate matter was “being pressured from above to rush this thing,” according to Jeanes’ complaint.

“I didn’t think that was appropriate,” said Jeanes, who has since moved to Collin County to be closer to his grandchildren. “He shouldn’t have been involved at all.”

Extraordinary request

The second case in which Fletcher allegedly interfered was the DWI case, where Huston’s sister was the defendant.

Jeanes’ complaint claimed his office got a motion and order on Oct. 18, 2017, to transfer the case to Fletcher’s court. It was stamped with the signature of Angela Albers, then-assistant district attorney.

Jeanes said he became suspicious and denied the transfer.

“This motion and order submission seemed out of the ordinary,’” his complaint said.

Read Jeanes’ report:

Typically, Jeanes would transfer misdemeanor cases to Fletcher’s court only if there was a felony charge against the same defendant. In this case, there was no felony and therefore no need for a transfer.

Also, Albers usually signed court documents by hand in blue ink, instead of using a stamp, like the one that appeared on the documents sent to Jeanes, according to the complaint.

In his judicial complaint, Jeanes said Albers told him she hadn’t stamped her name on the transfer motion, and that she didn’t know who had done so.

In an interview with Texas Lawyer, Albers confirmed Fletcher had initiated the transfer request but said she does not believe the judge fraudulently stamped her signature on the motion.

“It was probably one of these girls in the office,” Albers said. “That was not done with an ill intent.”

Jeanes’ complaint said Fletcher later visited Jeanes’ office to ask why Jeanes had denied the transfer. Jeanes said he expressed concern about the source and validity of the transfer motion.

“Judge Fletcher responded that he had instigated the transfer request,” according to the complaint. “He explained that he had heard that the defendant was ‘running all over the county saying that she wasn’t worried and that she had this in the bag,’ and he had wanted the case transferred so that he could ‘chew her ass out’ and show her that she would receive no special treatment,” said the complaint.

According to the complaint, Jeanes told Fletcher the DWI defendant wouldn’t get special treatment. Jeanes added that he asked who had done the defendant’s magistration, and Fletcher had said he didn’t know.

“I later learned that Judge Fletcher had magistrated this charge,” said the complaint narrative. Jeanes said he also later learned that the defendant was Huston’s sister.

Wheeler Intervened?

The district attorney at the time, Wheeler, allegedly planned to file a judicial complaint against Flectcher, according to Jeanes.

Jeanes said he told Wheeler at a November 2017 meeting that he was preparing a report about Fletcher, and that he was willing, after he’d finished his own complaint, to sign off on a joint complaint with Wheeler.

“I did file my complaint,” Jeanes said in an interview. “I was not aware he ever filed any complaint.”

Wheeler declined to comment and hung up on Texas Lawyer before hearing questions about the Fletcher complaint.

His attorney and father, James Paul Wheeler, told Texas Lawyer that he didn’t have a copy of any complaint against Fletcher and didn’t know whether the judge faced discipline.

“My understanding is that overall, [Jim Wheeler] was very supportive of Judge Fletcher, and remains so,” James Wheeler said.

Judicial discipline

The judicial conduct commission sent Jeanes a letter that said the commission considered his complaint against Fletcher at a regularly scheduled meeting.

Jeanes emailed the letter to Texas Lawyer.

“After a thorough review and investigation of the issues you raised in your complaint, the commission voted to issue the judge a private sanction,” said the July 6, 2018, letter.

That same date appears on a private warning, not listing any judge’s name, posted on the commission’s website.

“It’s obviously in response to my filing the complaint,” Jeanes said.

The private warning said, “The judge lent the prestige of his judicial office to advance the private interests of his court administrator and her family, failed to comply with the law and maintain professional competence in the law, improperly failed to recuse himself, and engaged in improper ex parte communications.”

The warning also said the judge repeatedly tried to expedite a hearing in a probate matter in another court by talking with the court and its staff.

According to the warning, the judge did the magistration of his court administrator’s half-sister in a criminal case. The judge pressured a prosecutor to transfer that criminal case to his court, communicated to the prosecutor his dissatisfaction with the terms of a plea agreement, and “directed her to impose certain conditions on the sentence,” said the warning, which found the judge violated five judicial conduct rules, and ordered additional education.

“I personally would have wanted it to be a public admonishment, rather than a private one,” Jeanes said. “But I understand when you get in the arena of a district judge, they are not as quick to call them on the carpet.”