Harris County judge admonished by oversight commission for lashing out against prosecutors

Harris County Judge Darrell Jordan was publicly admonished last month by Texas’s judicial oversight agency after the Harris County district attorney’s office complained in 2019 that Jordan was biased against prosecutors and lashed out at them for failing to show him the proper respect. The public admonishment filed by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct found that Jordan threatened to charge at least one assistant district attorney with contempt of court for “failing to show him the proper respect” and in October 2018, summoned several prosecutors to his chambers to lecture them about the perceived disrespect he was feeling. During that meeting, Jordan referred to himself as the “king” of his court and the state’s attorneys as “hang ‘em high prosecutors,” the commission found.

Jordan, who did not respond to a request for comment, acknowledged to the commission that those incidents occurred, but denied losing his temper, mistreating the prosecutors or exhibiting bias toward them, the commission wrote. District Attorney Kim Ogg’s office did not respond to a request for comment. County Commissioner Rodney Ellis said in 2020 that the judge is “one of the brightest, most professional lawyers” he knows. He said Jordan “had to ruffle a lot of feathers” by working with him on Harris County misdemeanor reform. Jordan will have to obtain an additional two hours of instruction from a mentor in addition to his required judicial education for 2022. “In particular, the Commission desires Judge Jordan receive this additional education in the areas of judicial temperament and demeanor and a judge's role as a public servant,” the commission wrote.