Who knew that there was such a hotbed of ugliness right here in our neck of the woods? Chief Justice Tom Gray trashes his fellow judges, not only verbally but in everlasting print. Seems he was invited by the local Somervell County Republican Club to talk at their Ronald Reagan Day (I remember seeing that in the Glen Rose Reporter newspaper) and the ladies who run it asked Felipe Reyna (who is also a Republican), one of the other 3 justices, to introduce him.

After a glowing introduction, Reyna asked the 60 members of the audience to stand and welcome “my good friend, the honorable Chief Justice Tom Gray.”

As Gray took the podium, he started by thanking Reyna for referring to him as his good friend.

“But really, we have nothing in common,” Gray continued. “I have never been in his home. He has never been in my home, and whenever there is a disagreement on the court, he always sides with Bill Vance.”

The crowd stared in hushed disbelief, not knowing how to take the comment. Reyna and his wife, Cheryl, did.

The article in the Waco Trib reference above shows that Judge Gray, one of three members on the most reversed court in Texas, is using his position to attack his fellow colleagues on a personal basis. And that, along with the sheer number of dissents Gray writes, has made the 10th Circuit a joke in legal circles. Here's an example.

From the Volkh Conspiracy.

Pena v. State (Tex. Ct. App. May 2), holds that the Texas Constitution provides defendants with more rights to relief than the U.S. Constitution in cases where the prosecution had inadvertently destroyed evidence. Here are a few sentences from the opening two paragraphs of Chief Justice Gray's dissenting opinion (some citations omitted):

“As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.” Proverbs 26:11. As the majority did in 2005, the majority again reverses Pena’s conviction, and holds that the trial court erred in overruling Pena’s objections to the testimony of Texas Department of Public Safety criminologist Charles Mott and related evidence without giving a jury instruction unknown to Texas law.... Pena’s brief on remand adds nothing, but merely regurgitates the majority’s analysis in Pena I....

The majority’s opinion glosses over two properly dispositive parts of the analysis, namely preservation of error and harm, in less than a page each, in order to publish its thirty-six page, mediocre law-review article on the merits of Pena’s issues under the Texas Constitution....

The majority responds, in footnote 27: "In reading the dissenting opinion’s selection from the Scriptures, we are reminded of the recent observation of the Court of Criminal Appeals: 'First, the statement is unnecessary; it contributes nothing to the legal issue before us. Second, and most importantly, it is highly unprofessional. When a judge chastises other members of the judiciary in this manner, it not only reflects poorly on the judge, it undermines the integrity of the justice system. The words of Supreme Court Justice Kennedy are particularly appropriate here: 'The collegiality of the judiciary can be destroyed if we adopt the habits and mannerisms of modern, fractious discourse. Neither in public nor in private must we show disrespect for our fellow judges. Whatever our failings, we embody the law and its authority. Disrespect for the person leads to disrespect for the cause.' If public respect for the judiciary is to be maintained, it must begin from within.'"

I am not going to pretend to understand whether Mr. Gray's dissents are legitimate or not. I found this really peculiar case, Delair Watson v State of Texas, that reversed a conviction against a man accused of trying to sexually assault a woman, written by Reyna, and frankly, I don't get why that was NOT sexual assault-I mean, the man enters the house, has a knife and drops his pants, with an erection. That's NOT attempted rape? Then WTF is?

The indictment alleges that Watson entered Jennifer Romo’s apartment without her consent “and attempted to commit . . . the felony offense of sexual assault.” [1] Romo testified that she saw Watson “kind of jogging” toward her porch on the afternoon in question. He came to her screen door and tried to talk with her. He told her that he knew her, but she suggested to him that he was probably thinking of the teenage girls who lived next door. As they talked, Watson opened the door, stepped halfway in, and put his foot between the door and the doorjamb so she couldn’t close the door. Romo noticed that Watson had an erection at this time. She told him to leave, and he did.

Romo then went into another room, but she heard the screen door open again only a few seconds later. She found Watson standing in her kitchen and started yelling at him to get out. Watson just stood there without saying anything. He then dropped his shorts to his ankles, exposing himself in an aroused state. Romo grabbed a butcher knife, pointed it at him, and told him to get out. Watson grabbed the end of the knife. Romo twisted the knife, and Watson let go. He pulled up his shorts and left. Watson walked over and sat down on the porch of an apartment across the street. Romo called her father who in turn called the police. The police arrested Watson sitting on the porch across the street from Romo’s apartment.

Watson contends in two issues that the evidence is legally and factually insufficient to prove that he intended to commit sexual assault while in Romo’s apartment.

But then, Governor 39 percent endorsed Reyna...

Also speaking at the event Tuesday was Reyna, who is running against fellow Republican Lynnan Locke Kendrick in the March 9 primary. The winner of that election will face Democrat Boyd Mangrum in November.

I voted for Mangrum, who would have been a terrific judge.

Perry, who appointed Reyna in December to fill the 10th Court vacancy until the election, said his candidate was among “the best and the brightest of Texas.”

“He is an individual who truly understands the job of interpreting the law — not being a legislator or a rogue,” Perry said.

So Gray's dissents might be legitimate, although, as the Trib article says:

“The cases with novel or close legal questions are the ones most likely to draw a dissenting opinion,” Vance said. “They are also the ones most likely to be appealed to a higher court. That’s why the higher courts exist. So, if a judge dissents in every one of those cases, he can boast that he was right when the higher court reverses the lower court’s decision. But nothing will be said about all the times the dissenting views do not prevail in the higher court.”

An attorney who follows the court closely said the higher courts agreed with Gray no more than 25 percent of the time last year in cases in which he wrote a dissent.

Here's another example from 2005. The Trib article also points out that the NUMBER of dissents lodged slow down the system, which is supposed to be a workhorse and work those caseloads.

A Waco attorney who appears regularly before the court and who asked for anonymity because he feared reprisals said there is no question that Gray has gotten personal in his references to his fellow judges.

“The problem is the drag on the output of the court, because every time you have to dissent, three, four times a week, you cannot have the output of an appellate court,” the attorney said. “These courts are meat grinders because they receive all the criminal and civil appeals of the district courts. They are the workhorses of the state. If they are not putting out a product, then the system bogs down, and the truth of it all is, that is exactly what is happening.”

He said Gray’s judicial approach is “far, far different” from any other appeals judge he has known.

“I’m not saying the guy doesn’t have a point from time to time. He is certainly a bright guy and a scholar at times on the issues that he is right on. The problem is you dilute the issues that have merit by slogging through every minute issue and airing your dirty laundry out for all to see. It is out there forever. They are in bound volumes. He just has to tone the rancor down. I just don’t know why his need to dissent is there.”

Mr. Gray seems to me, whether right or wrong, to be completely unprofessional in the manner in which he is stooping to smear his fellow judges.

George Dix, a law professor at the University of Texas in Austin, said there is a big difference between respectful dissent and the kind of language that demeans judges and, in turn, the very issues before the court.

“It is unseemly and harmful to the court in general for there to be that kind of exchange that frequently,” said Dix, who is familiar with the work of the 10th Court. “It detracts from the work. Certainly, you read the opinions and you come away maybe not remembering what was held or what was discussed, but you do remember the personal animosity. It does detract from what otherwise might be good, professional work.”