The president of a national women’s equality organization on Monday criticized a plea agreement that quashed sexual abuse allegations against U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent.
Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, said it is “ridiculously” difficult to pursue complaints of wrongdoing against federal judges, especially when the party of the president that appointed him has a majority on the bench.
“In so many ways, our federal court system is broken, where litigants with legitimate complaints can’t get a hearing even when the defendant is not a federal judge,” Gandy said.
Kent’s former case manager and secretary accused the judge of groping them, and Kent pleaded guilty Monday to an obstruction of justice charge. Prosecutors then dropped five sexual abuse charges brought against Kent, who sat most of his years on the bench in Galveston.
It’s not yet known whether Kent would receive probation or prison time for the guilty plea, or whether he would forfeit his federal pension.
Typically, attorneys convicted of felony crimes in Texas must either surrender their law licenses or face disbarment. But the State Bar of Texas, which licenses attorneys, could not say Monday what would happen in Kent’s case.
Maureen Ray, special administrative counsel to the bar’s chief disciplinary counsel, said the bar would review Monday’s plea before acting.
Ray said she didn’t know whether any other lawyers convicted of, or who pleaded guilty to obstruction charges, had ever been allowed to keep their law licenses.
Geoffrey Corn, associate professor of law at South Texas College of Law, said Kent must consider the plea a good deal, but the bigger question is why the plea was offered.
“The answer to that is cases like these are fundamentally defined by credibility,” Corn said. “They are wild cards ... Going to trial, especially with a federal judge asserting his credibility, is always a crap shoot.”
Monday’s decision doesn’t make it easier for women to seek justice against powerful employers, Gandy said.
“The fact the judge is ... off the bench is a victory, but it comes awfully late and after a lot of damage has been done,” Gandy said. “These women should not have had to pursue this personally. It should have been pursued by the judicial system.”
Gandy questioned whether Kent will “pay the price” for his actions.
“I’m confident many litigants who appeared before him have already paid a price for their misfortune of having drawn a judge like Kent,” Gandy said.
Kent’s plea may have repercussions on cases heard in his court. People who lost cases would use that as a basis to challenge the outcome, South Texas College of Law Associate Dean Gerald Treece said.
In fact, there is already one case filed claiming Kent’s “sexually deviancy” biased the judge in the case.
Mainland Editor T.J. Aulds contributed to this report.
