Judge Walter Smith, a Federal judge in Waco, was reprimanded by the Fifth Circuit last year for unwanted sexual advances on one of his employees back in 1998. I wrote about that reprimand here. Judge Smith has now retired. Apparently, the investigation into whether he made advances on other women over the years will continue. A federal judicial conduct committee met last July and found that the sanctions imposed against Judge Smith may not have gone far enough. The lawyer involved in the first complaint, Ty Clevenger, appealed the Fifth Circuit’s sanctions to the judicial conduct committee. As part of his appeal, he submitted the names of other courthouse employees who had been harassed by Judge Smith.

It turns out that during the initial investigation, Judge Smith failed to mention that the lawyer defending him had cases pending in Judge Smith’s court. That poses problems for Judge Smith and his defense lawyer. And, Ty Clevenger has his own legal issues. He has filed numerous complaints against judges and lawyers for years. He maintains a judge blog, dirtyrottenjudges.com. He was sanctioned by a Washington, D.C. judge and fined $120,000. An action to disbar him is pending in the District of Columbia. Judge Smith sanctioned Mr. Clevenger seven years ago for filing a frivolous lawsuit. He fined him $25,000. See Waco Tribune-Herald report.

The frightening thing for lawyers who do what I do is that he granted summary judgment in one of my discrimination cases many years ago. What do victims of discrimination do when the fox is guarding the hen-house?