![]() ![]() The judge and Jones, who became a judge herself after the investigation was launched, did not deny the ex parte text communication they shared during Reeves’s trial. The Commission launched an ethics investigation into Coker’s conduct. A judge shall not initiate, permit, or consider ex parte communications or other communications made to a judge outside the presence of the parties between the judge and a party, an attorney, a guardian or attorney ad litem, an alternative dispute resolution neutral, or any other court appointee concerning the merits of a pending or impending judicial proceeding.” Texting a private message to one of the attorneys about a contested matter before the court is ex parte. Immediately after the trial Wells wrote a letter to the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct reporting the incident.Ĭanon 3 of the Code of Judicial Conduct specifically states: “A judge shall accord to every person who has a legal interest in a proceeding, or that person’s lawyer, the right to be heard according to law. In fact, the unethical conduct would have gone unnoticed had it not been for David Wells, an investigator in the District Attorney’s office, who witnessed the texting exchange between Coker and Jones, and who was asked by Jones to give the message to Armstrong. ![]() Neither of the prosecutors shared the unethical message with Reeves’s defense counsel. The two prosecutors knew it, as did the judge. The text message was clearly an ethical breach. Jones conveyed this information to Armstrong by writing it out on the top of a legal pad the two prosecutors were sharing. And she obviously did not like the way the prosecution was being handled, so she sent a text message to Jones instructing her to tell prosecutor Armstrong about a specific line of questioning she should ask that would prove Reeves’s guilt. Coker was patently biased against Reeves, either for personal reasons or repugnance against the crime for which he was being tried. Reeves’ case was being prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Beverly Armstrong. That’s the kind of relationship Polk County District Judge Elizabeth Coker had with then Assistant District Attorney Kaycee Jones in August 2012 when she was presiding over the trial of David Reeves who was being tried for injury to a child. That creates a natural affinity between prosecutors bent on convictions and judges who issue rulings that make the pathway to conviction easier. The bio of at least two out of every three judges reveals their journey to the bench began as a prosecutor. The notion that judges are to be fair and impartial arbiters in a criminal case morphs when attorneys became enthralled with the power, status, and influence of being a prosecutor and/or a judge. A visit to any courthouse in America during a criminal trial will reveal this fact.
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