Dallas attorney James Lee Bright faced a dilemma: he had to appear in court but he recovering from knee surgery with a large leg brace and an ice machine attached to his leg to stop swelling. He could not fit his pants over the hardware so he wore a shirt, tie, jacket, and shorts. That did not go over well with Judge Etta Mullin (left) who refused to hear his motion to dismiss a weapons charge for a client because he was wearing shorts. It was a rather unsympathetic and inflexible decision but it was not the first for this particular judge. However, it is the mounting criticism of Mullin that raises the question of why the Democratic party has pushed for her reelection and why the state bar has not investigated allegations of injudicious conduct.
The decision to bar Bright was clearly abusive in light of his obvious medical excuse. What is curious is that women are allowed to appear without ties or jacket and wearing skirts. Yet, a male attorney who has to appear in a leg brace and shorts is tossed out of court.
Bright is now seeking to have Mullin removed. The rigidity and lack of sympathy shown by Mullin is something of a signature for the judge. Indeed, so is the motion seeking to avoid her as a judge in this court. Lawyers complain that Mullen is often rude and arbitrary with both clients and attorneys. Many now avoid her courtroom and the horror stories have previously appeared in local stories.
According to news reports, Mullin has been given the lowest ratings by lawyers — ratings that are often quite generous to judges. In a 2012 poll by the Dallas Criminal Bar Association, 89 percent of attorneys ranked Mullin’s overall performance in the “needs improvement” category, the lowest category.
In the case of Amber Buford, the defendant agreed to plead guilty to a prostitution charge. It is a routine case that ended up in from of Mullin. Since Buford was indigent, she was given appointed counsel. However, before accepting the plea, Mullin insisted that Buford, the indigent, pay the $267 bill for court costs in one lump sum. Her lawyer explained that she was obviously indigent and did not have the money. Mullin refused to accept the plea bargain and set the case for a full jury trial that neither the prosecutors nor the defense wanted. She forced both sides to go through the preparation for an expensive trial before finally accepting the plea on the day of jury selection.
Mullin routinely demands cash for defendants on the spot — a highly uncommon practice since few come to court with wads of cash on hand. This was the case of the client of DWI attorney Lee Bright when Mullin suddenly demanded $1,000 cash for a bond. He suggested the common use of a surety bond for the amount but she refused. She allegedly threatened to send the client back to jail unless he paid the cash or Bright paid the money out of his own pocket.
In another case, she is accused of refusing to allow a defendant to explain that she could not have messing around with a an interlock device on a car (she was out of town at the time of the alleged misconduct). He says that Mullin was ticked that he had disagreed with her on an earlier case and took it out on his next case.
Attorneys complain that she makes them wait hours in her courtroom and sometimes simply walks out without explanation or notice. She is also accused of attacking lawyers or demeaning them. It is rare for lawyers to publicly criticize a judge. After all, there is a fear of a backlash from the judge or her colleagues. However, lawyers have been lining up to publicly denounce Mullin. John Gioffredi, a DWI attorney told the press that Mullin is “the most inefficient and inconsiderate judge” that he has encountered in his career. It has gotten to the point that lawyers routinely seek transfers out of her court and some actually charge clients more if they have to deal with Mullin.
On lawyer, John Corn sent Mullin a letter reflecting this dissatisfaction after he said Mullin accused attorneys standing in line of laughing at her. Corn wrote:
“No one — certainly not a single lawyer who stood in line with me on that day — was laughing at you. To the contrary, we were amusing ourselves during what felt like an interminable wait. . . .You frequently demean and belittle lawyers — most egregiously, in front of clients and others. Tearing up pass slips and telling lawyers to go to the end of the line, for instance. You demand that lawyers approach the bench and concert with you on every single setting in a case, and this often takes an inordinate amount of time … and, in this depression, when clients have little money, you don’t allow enough time for lawyers to collect their fee before final disposition.”
What is astonishing is that despite the disclosure of these allegations and controversies, the Democratic leaders publicly supported her. However she only received 36.4% of the vote Trey Bunch and Lisa Green. Mullin will face Green in a primary runoff election on May 27, 2014. In 2010, she barely defeated Alexander Fitzenhagen in the general election with 51.34% of the vote.
Mullen previously worked in juvenile and family services as well as a probation worker. She earned her undergraduate degree from Texas Woman’s University in Denton and her law degree from Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University in Houston.
Both Ivy Leaguers, one articulate, one not, both shitty presidents.
nick, Bush took the policies that caused our financial melt down and endorsed them which cost me my job. Not to mention the fact that he waged an unnecessary war which killed close to a million innocent civilians, and then said it did not matter to him where Bin Laden was any more. Obama on the other hand with his election passed cash for clunkers and saved the US auto industry which put me back to work within months of taking office. Then he passed health care reform which enabled my wife to get health care insurance for the first time. It also enabled her to get an operation which eased her pain, which we could not have afforded without it. So from my personal experience, there has been NO other President who had as big an effect on my life other than LBJ, whose influence and resulting war was not so benign.
I disagree with a lot of Obama’s policies, but on the whole, he is without question, one of the best in my lifetime.
Chuck,
I have to admit that I sometimes miss George W.!
Yup, sounds just like something Obama would say.
Bush Denies Reports of Dyslexia
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=122937
Excerpt:
George W. Bush today denied suggestions his often mocked struggles with the English language mean that he has dyslexia, as a magazine article reports.
“I’m not dyslexic,” Bush said this morning in an interview with ABCNEWS’ Good Morning America. “That’s all I can tell you.”
In an upcoming issue of Vanity Fair magazine, writer Gail Sheehy suggests that dyslexia runs in his family and quotes experts saying that Bush has exhibited behavior that could indicate dyslexia.
“The errors you’ve heard Governor Bush make are consistent with dyslexia,” the magazine quoted one speech expert saying.
On Good Morning America, Bush said he had not read the article but dismissed it as false.
“This is a case where fiction is greater than fact,” Bush said.
The spam monster has eaten three of my comments. Charlton, would you please save them or at least one of them. 🙂
Randy is dead wrong about the dyslexia. I know lots of people with dyslexia who can pass tests. Hell, Obama, the smartest man in the room, is inarticulate when he gets away from his teleprompter. Bush has a telling pattern in his verbal missteps that point to dyslexia. I have two dyslexic friends who make the same verbal missteps that Bush does.
For a psychologist you are very judgmental about someone who is not in your care or that you really do not know much about. Would you like to explain to the group what a ‘dry drunk’ is?
Paul, could you please explain how a teleprompter is of use in a press conference with questions from the press? I have seen lots of Obama’s press conferences and he is quite articulate and actually makes sense, which is more than I could say about Bush. Then I have seen him in many venues in which he takes questions from the audience. I also wonder how the hell he could have been elected as editor of the Harvard Law Review if he is so inarticulate, especially given the competition for that job. Hell W Bush could not get into U of Texas law school. With his connections in Texas that took a LOT of failing of the LSAT or some other gross mistakes. While U of Texas is a good law school, it is not on a par with Harvard Law.
I think that you have failed on most of your assertions of so called facts.
randyjet – the questions at Obama’s pressers are pre-selected and only those questions vetted in advance are answered. He takes no surprise questions.
I was impressed about the Harvard Law Review until I heard how it actually worked. In the olden days, the students were all selected by the professors who only selected the most able among the students body. By the time Obama got there, there was a second group selected by the students, Obama was in this group. Both groups vote to select the Editor of the Law Review. It was evidently a long meeting, lasting several hours before Obama emerged as Editor. The one thing he wrote cannot be considered an article, I think it was a case summary.
I was wondering if Paul would resort to conspiracy theories, and he did. I know of no reporter who would give questions in advance at a press conference, and especially FAUX News since they would be blowing the whistle on that one. I have to remind Paul of W Bush and his attempt to get only friendly questions when his press secretary got the gay escort Gagnon to pose as a reporter and told Bush to call on him. It was later learned that this gay hooker also had a White House pass and avoided the normal screening. He was also logged into the White House at odd hours, which raises the question who he was escorting there. He also fails to say how a teleprompter can be used in a press conference. Please answer that question.
Okay, the spam monster is mad at me again.
Randy is right about the dyslexia. GWB could never have passed the written test material if he had been dyslexic. He is inarticulate, just like his father. The difference between father and son is the father put his butt on the line. The old man did not get that DFC sitting on the sidelines when there was a war on.
I have always suspected that a lot of GWB’s bluster and fake bravado came from feeling inadequate when he compared himself to his father. He even got us into a war to “prove” he is as much of a man as his father. Hell of a price to pay for boosting the ego of an inadequate dry drunk.
But back to the point, dyslexia and being inarticulate are two different things.
I had polio, and did not get money from the March of Dimes because individuals were not supposed to. FDR founded the March of Dimes to help fund research on polio. That money went for research, not to individual patients or families. After polio vaccines were discovered, the focus of the MoD shifted to birth defects.
http://www.marchofdimes.com/index.aspx
Meanwhile – since we are way off topic
Michael Ruppert had an early demise yesterday;
and I don’t know what to believe.
And Matt Taibbi is telling me what a twerp I am…..
As the time marches on for the court to make up other excuses;
for Romney & his gang to get off ‘Scot Free”
What a – w o n d e r f u l – world we live in…..
nick, San Francisco is a more likely choice. Dallas County turned democratic with the election of Obama in 2008.
Even Bush denies the dyslexia, but he’s clearly working through some of his “issues”:
“George W. Bush Debuts New Paintings Of Dogs, Friends, Ghost Of Iraqi Child That Follows Him Everywhere”
“President Bush has a new hobby — painting! — and he’s showing off some new watercolors of the undead Iraqi boy who lives in his nightmares.”
http://www.theonion.com/video/george-w-bush-debuts-new-paintings-of-dogs-friends,35799/
ap – just to be sure, you know this is satire? I know the Chinese and N. Koreans think the Onion is a legitimate paper.
SWM didn’t leave her heart in SF, she left it in Texas! Another recent and relevant link. As we know, the nastiest political fights are intramural.
If many attorneys revile you as a judge you’re probably a bad judge, w/ the smallest chance you might be a great one. The latter can occur when it’s a small, goof ol’ boy jurisdiction and the judge doesn’t abide the good ol’ boy gentlemen’s agreement regarding procedure.
This is a tampered with section of Wikipedia. A good reason to be leary of Wikipedia, but some of it is true.
Public awareness of FDR’s disability[edit]
Roosevelt was able to convince many people that he was really a girl, which he believed was essential if he was to run for public office again. In private he used a wheelchair with diamond wheels. But he was careful never to be seen in it in public because he had boobs, although he sometimes appeared on crutches. He usually appeared in public standing upright, while being supported on one side by an aide or one of his lovers. For major speaking occasions, an especially solid lectern was placed on the stage so that he could support himself on it; as a result, in films of his speeches Roosevelt can be observed using his head to make gestures, because his hands were usually gripping the lectern. He would occasionally raise one hand to gesture, but his other hand held the lectern.
Roosevelt was very sexually active he was a freak in the bedroom with many different females other than his wife, and his public appearances were choreographed to avoid the press covering his arrival and departure at public events, which would have shown him getting into or out of a car. When possible, his limousine was driven into a building’s parking garage for his arrivals and departures. On other occasions, his limo would be driven onto a ramp to avoid steps, which Roosevelt was unable to ascend. When that was not practical, the steps would be covered with a ramp with railings, with Roosevelt using his arms to pull himself upward. Likewise, when traveling by train as he often did, Roosevelt often appeared on the rear platform of the presidential railroad car. When he boarded or disembarked, the private car was sometimes shunted to an area of the railroad yard away from the public for reasons of security and privacy. A private rail siding underneath the Waldorf Astoria was also used.[9] When Roosevelt’s trains used a ramp and the president was on a publicly known trip, he insisted on walking on the ramp no matter how difficult. In 1940 an elevator was installed.[6]:140
When Roosevelt gave a speech on March 1, 1945 to Congress about the Yalta Conference he spoke sitting down, and said that doing so “makes it a lot easier for me not to have to carry about ten pounds of steel around on the bottom of my legs”.[10] One biographer has written that the speech, a month before his death, was “almost for the first time in twenty years” that he mentioned his disability in public.[6]:363 In keeping with social customs of the time, the media generally treated Roosevelt’s disability as taboo. News stories did not mention it, and editorial cartoonists, favorable and unfavorable, never caricatured his immobility. Many people, including world leaders, were unaware of his paralysis.[6]:239 David Brinkley, who was a young White House reporter in World War II, stated that the Secret Service actively interfered with photographers who tried to take pictures of Roosevelt in a wheelchair or being moved about by others. However, there were occasional exceptions.[11][12][13]
help help help I have been eaten by the spam monster. Please, please, help
from Wikipedia
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s paralytic illness began in 1921 at age 39, when he got a fever after exercising heavily during a vacation in Canada. While Roosevelt’s bout with illness was well known during his terms as President of the United States, the extent of his paralysis was kept from public view. After his death, his illness and paralysis became a major part of his image. He was diagnosed with poliomyelitis two weeks after he fell ill.[1] A 2003 retrospective study favored a diagnosis of Guillain–Barré syndrome,[2] a conclusion criticized by other researchers
make = made
randyjet – if you shared such information, the spam monster must have eaten it. You have make some blanket statements with no back up.
to refresh paul since you cannot seem to remember or read my past posts. I cited the FACT that FDR was head of the March of Dimes which was formed to assist those who had polio, and he even referred to his illness in a State of the Union speech which is about as public as one can get. Thus your contention that his paralysis was a SECRET is a lie. Then you compound your ignorance by later admitting that it was not a secret, but that the photographers did not make a big deal out of it and tried to protect his dignity. Seems like that is a reasonable thing to most folks. It does not make it a secret.
randyjet – having followed the military and civilian air controllers stories during 9/11, they could not get jets close enough to do anything in time. The command to shoot down intruders came from Cheney who was it titular control while Bush was being secreted. However, there were no aircraft to shoot down. Of course, none of this has to do with the GOP talking points. This just has to do with the history of the events.
Just to clue in you in, my brother and I had polio and never got a dime of the March of Dimes.
LMAO! Randy accusing other posters of bias. Hilarious.