COMMISSION ISSUES PRIVATE REPRIMAND AGAINST SALAZAR

By Juan Montoya

The Texas Judicial Commission has reportedly issued an unpublished private reprimand to Justice of the Peace Precinct 2, Place 1 Linda Salazar on a complaint filed by a Cameron County resident on several cases where she handled cases involving her son and not removing herself from the proceedings.

According to sources close to the complainant (who is not identified by the commission) Salazar (who is also not identified in the document) received a Private Reprimand and an Order of Additional Education over the complaint. The correspondence was mailed April 9, 2019.

(in the photo at right, Salazar administers the oath of office to another son, Ruben, hen he was elected to the board of the Brownsville Independent School District. He is said to be considering a run against Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. in the next election.)

Apparently, the commission found that Salazar had been routinely dismissing cases involving her son Mark Anthony Cortez, not once, not twice, but (can you believe it?) four times, and dismissed some, one of them with a token $20 fine.

This type of activities by a judicial office goes against every precept of fairness and impartiality. In fact, judicial canons are quite specific on the practice. The specific prohibition against this is embedded in the Texas Constitution.

THE TEXAS CONSTITUTION
ARTICLE 5. JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT

Sec. 11. DISQUALIFICATION OF JUDGES; EXCHANGE OF DISTRICTS; HOLDING COURT FOR OTHER JUDGES. No judge shall sit in any case wherein the judge may be interested, or where either of the parties may be connected with the judge, either by affinity or consanguinity, within such a degree as may be prescribed by law, or when the judge shall have been counsel in the case.

Texas Code of Judicial Conduct

B. A judge shall not allow any relationship to influence judicial conduct or judgment...nor shall a judge convey or permit others to convey the impression that they are in a special position to influence the judge.

In each case, the docket sheet notes that the cases were dismissed by the state (Cameron County District Attorney's Office), and once at Salazar's discretion after Cortez appeared to have complied with the law and replaced his expired license/registration on his car.

She charged him a token $20 for court costs and that was it. That's her signature on the bottom. (Click on graphic at right to enlarge.)

In Case 2011-FTR-008037, Mark Anthony was charged with having an unrestrained child in his car and on a companion case 2011-FTR-00838, was charged himself for not wearing a safety belt. Both, as the docket sheet notes, were dismissed on a motion by the state. Salazar also signed off on them.

We seriously doubt that the state attorneys realized the defendant was Salazar's son, or did they?

In yet another case, 2017-FTR-00468, he was charged with displaying the expired license sticker and got off with the $20 fine for court costs.

And there was another case pending in Salazar's court involving Mark Anthony (2018-FDC-00525), this one involving an unpaid $2,335.61 since February 7, 2017 on a Walmart credit card. That account was sold to Midland Funding who then sued for collection. That lawsuit ended at Linda's court since April 2018 and remained pending until Cortez ran for the board of the BISD.

Once the cases were made public, Salazar transferred the pending  cases to her pal JP Pct 5, Place 1 Sallie Gonzalez and her son negotiated a payment plan with his creditors. However, the complaint to the commission had already been filed and investigators interviewed several people in Brownsville before the reprimand was issued. Mark Anthony lost his bid for the BISD.

In contrast, when it was revealed that she had a sister employed in her office for more than a decade against the state and county's nepotism policy, the woman was just moved to another JP office in Brownsville as part of a restructuring in personnel and no further action was taken by the commissioner court or the district attorney's office.

Salazar, up for reelection in 2020, faces at least two challengers so far, Cyndi Hinojosa and Fred Arias.