Reprimanded Federal Judge Accustomed To Attention

HOUSTON, TX.(AP) – During his 17 years on the bench, U.S. District Judge Samuel B. Kent of Galveston has occasionally made news for his pointed remarks and humorous orders.

But Kent’s latest media mention is no laughing matter. The Judicial Council of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week reprimanded Kent after a lengthy investigation of alleged sexual harassment of a federal employee and inappropriate behavior toward other workers – rare disciplinary action for a federal judge. The council ordered Kent to serve a four-month leave of absence, though he’d already begun his punishment before Friday’s order.

In late August, Kent agreed to relinquish his caseload for the final four months of the year, The Galveston County Daily News reported last month. Kent, nominated by the first President Bush in 1990, continues to collect his $165,000 annual salary, the Galveston newspaper and Houston Chronicle reported separately. Messages left on an answering machine in his judicial chambers were not returned. A residential listing wasn’t found.

The Texas-educated judge has built a reputation for dispensing justice quickly and demanding professionalism from lawyers. He also has a knack for humor in the courtroom. When East Coast attorneys asked him to move a case from his court because Galveston lacks a commercial airport, he denied the request, reminding them the 50-mile freeway between Houston and his Gulf Coast city “is paved and lighted.”

In the same order, Kent assured the lawyers his courtroom “has got lights, indoor plummin’, ‘lectric doors, and all sorts of new stuff, almost like them big courthouses back East.” Another time, Kent chided lawyers on both sides after granting a request to dismiss a lawsuit. He suggested they must have entered into a secret pact to draft their pleadings in crayon “in the hope that the court would be so charmed by their childlike efforts that their utter dearth of legal authorities in their briefing would go unnoticed.”

Kent has said he wants to garner respect for court proceedings in Galveston and, in a broader sense, Texas. “I have tried very hard to make sure Galveston is seen as a professional place, a place where important work is done in a really responsible way to sort of dispel the mythology that everybody in Texas is a bunch of hicks and rednecks and fools and we’re down here hanging people as fast as we can get them into the courtroom,” he said in a 2001 interview with The Associated Press. But he’s also brought notoriety to the court.

In July 2001, the chief federal judge of the Houston region removed 85 cases from Kent’s court, all of which involved one of Kent’s closest friends. The friend, lawyer Richard Melancon, was the best man at the judge’s wedding and held Kent’s 50th birthday celebration at his home. U.S. District Judge George Kazen wrote in his order the transfer was “in the interest of the improved administration justice” and to lighten Kent’s heavy caseload. Friday’s reprimand, which stems from a harassment complaint lodged in May, also says Kent must complete “other remedial courses of action,” but it provides no specifics.

The order does not name the person who filed it, but the Galveston and Houston newspapers have identified her as Cathy McBroom, Kent’s former case manager. Joseph St. Amant, a spokesman for the 5th Circuit, said the public reprimand was the first for the court out of several hundred complaints filed in his eight or nine years in that position. The secrecy of such investigations, governed by federal law, is routine. Legal experts say the intent is to protect judges’ independence.

James Alfini, dean of the South Texas College of Law and co-author of a book on judicial conduct and ethics, said the 5th Circuit’s order is so vague it doesn’t even say which specific provisions of the code of judicial conduct Kent violated. He noted federal judges are subject to the same type of impeachment proceedings as presidents: impeachment by the House, then trial by the Senate. The National Organization for Women said Monday it will ask Congress to investigate whether Kent should be impeached and removed from the bench, the Daily News reported. Alfini said it doesn’t appear the case is headed in that direction, but the reprimand provides “no indication, one way or the other.”

By JOHN PORRETTO Associated Press Writer

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)