Texas judge defends letter asking former jurors to 'meet and greet'
A Texas judge says he didn’t violate any laws when he sent a letter to about 3,800 former jurors that thanked them for their service and asked them to attend a “meet and greet” for his re-election campaign.
The judge, Michael Seiler, tells the Conroe Courier and the Houston Chronicle that he didn’t violate a state law barring misuse of official information. The statute “just says I can’t disclose juror information,” Seiler told the Conroe Courier. “I didn’t disclose juror information.”
Seiler told the Chronicle that, “like many judges,” he writes letters to all jurors thanking them for their service. He faces two opponents in the Republican primary.
A woman who served as a juror in 2009, Darin Bailey, says she received one of the letters, and she has filed a complaint with the Texas Commission on Judicial Misconduct. She has also asked the District Attorney to investigate.
Bailey is chief deputy for the Montgomery County Clerk’s office, which isn’t responsible for documents from Seiler’s court.
Seiler was previously reprimanded for impatient and discourteous remarks to lawyers in his courtroom. The reprimand cited his speech to a Texas Patriot PAC in which Seiler held up a Hannibal Lecter photo while talking about the “psychopaths” who appeared before him in a civil commitment court for repeat sexual offenders.
