Texas judge is ordered to be recused from dozens of cases amid bias allegations

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Judiciary Texas judge is ordered to be recused from dozens of cases amid bias allegations

By Debra Cassens Weiss

July 19, 2022, 10:23 am CDT

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Judge Amber Givens of the 282nd Judicial District Court in Texas. Photo from the Dallas County, Texas, courts website.

A district judge in Dallas County, Texas, who presides in felony cases has been ordered to be recused from dozens of cases based on requests by 13 criminal defense lawyers.

A regional administrative judge ordered the recusal of Judge Amber Givens following a Friday hearing on the requests by the lawyers, who had filed 50 motions for recusal, WFAA reports. Givens had already agreed to recuse herself from most of the cases before the hearing.

Lawyer Mark Lassiter represented 12 of the attorneys who filed recusal motions. He told WFAA that the recusal motions raised questions about Givens’ impartiality, her “retaliatory nature” and her lawsuit against the Dallas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association.

Givens had filed what is known as a 202 lawsuit against the group, which is used to gather information to help decide whether to file a formal suit. The suit alleged defamation by the group and one of Givens’ primary opponents over claims she allowed a court coordinator to impersonate her during an online hearing. Givens has said the claim isn’t true.

A judge has dismissed the 202 lawsuit.

Givens previously told WFAA that lawyers who oppose her are trying “to suppress the will of the community and to pressure me to discontinue the progress we are making toward change in the court system.”

Givens is running unopposed in the Nov. 8 general election after winning a majority of the vote in the Democratic primary.

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