Legal News

Dissention on Texas Court Heats Up: Judge Responds to Accusation

By Dan Slater

A he said/she said is roiling the Texas judiciary.

On Tuesday, we got news that Jan Patterson, an appellate court justice, accused Chief Justice Ken Law of refusing to file her dissent in a money-laundering case involving two associates of former U.S. Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Patterson reportedly asked the Texas Supreme Court to intervene.

Now the American-Statesman reports that Chief Justice Law denies that he tried to suppress Patterson’s dissent. In a reply, Law said he did not seek to stop Patterson from filing a dissent, only to make her follow the court’s internal procedures by circulating her opinion first among colleagues to give them the opportunity to respond.

“Justice Patterson’s dissenting opinion is currently in circulation at the court and will be released together with any other opinions in the matter upon completion of that process,” wrote Law.

“Justice Patterson has not been denied the right to file an opinion and will not be denied,” Law reportedly wrote. “It is well-settled that a court of appeals may maintain internal administrative rules regarding … issuance of opinions.”

Correction: An earlier version of this post misidentified a picture of Woodie Jones as Ken Law.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on October 17, 2008 (boomark / email).