[Press release from the Texas Human Rights Foundation: Second effort launched to remove Judge Hampton] Page: 3 of 4
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Judge Chapman will continue taking oaths today and tomorrow, and will forward the
oaths, together with the presentment, to the Supreme Court on Monday, February
13th.
Neither the filing of a presentment with the Supreme Court nor the filing of a formal
complaint with the judicial Commission is an exclusive constitutional remedy. Each
method may be pursued independently, and the constitution provides two additional
methods for removal of a judge: impeachment by the Texas Senate, and directly by the
Governor. The Texas Supreme Court ruled in 1974 that all 4 methods for removal of a
judge may be pursued at the same time. In practice, however, the route most often
sought for removal of a judge has been through the filing of a complaint with the
Judicial Commission.
In 1987 the Commission received 515 complaints, and took disciplinary action in 66 of
such cases, while dismissing the rest of the complaints. In contrast, the constitutional
provision involving a presentment has only been invoked once in Texas history, in
1954.
For the past three weeks, THRF Legal Director, David Bryan and THRF President,
Austin attorney Frank Stenger, have researched the legal procedures surrounding the
constitutional provision for a prsentment of oaths and have discussed these with
William Waybourn, president of DGA "We have tried to offer counsel to DGA as to
the procedures governing this obscure provision of the Texas Constitution, and have
offered to make THRFs staff and legal resources available to prosecute the
presentment. It will be interesting to see how the Supreme Court and the
Commission will handle these concurrent attempts to remove judge Hampton, and
whether the Supreme Court will defer to considering the presentment until the
Commission has issued its final ruling. THRFs goal is to see Judge Hampton
removed from the bench, and whether that result is achieved through the THRF
complaint ,or through the presentment is irrelevent as far as we are concerned," said
Bryan.
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Texas Human Rights Foundation. [Press release from the Texas Human Rights Foundation: Second effort launched to remove Judge Hampton], text, February 9, 1989; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc916249/m1/3/: accessed July 8, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.