Texas judge reprimanded for Hannibal Lecter speech to Patriot PAC, impatient remarks
A Texas judge responsible for determining whether repeat sexual offenders are eligible for civil commitment has been reprimanded in part for a speech in which he held up a Hannibal Lecter photo while talking about the “psychopaths” who appeared before him.
The April 24 reprimand (PDF) of Judge Michael Thomas Seiler was released on May 1, Texas Lawyer reports.
The Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct found that Seiler was “impatient, discourteous and undignified” in his remarks to lawyers representing sex offenders, and his speech to a Texas Patriot PAC audience could cause reasonable observers to perceive he would not be fair and impartial while presiding in the civil commitment proceedings.
During the April 2013 speech, Seiler explained how testing determines whether a person is a psychopath and said he is the only judge in Texas who regularly deals with psychopaths. During the presentation, he showed a picture of Hannibal Lecter, the fictional serial killer in the movie Silence of the Lambs.
In one trial of a psychopath, Seiler told the audience, he kept a gun on his lap. He also discussed three specific cases, identifying sexual offenders by name and showing their photos. The photo of one, a former football player accused of sexually assaulting four cheerleaders, was labeled “cheerleader killer.” He called another a “pedophile rapist.”
At least 16 recusal motions have since been filed that cite the speech and allege that Seiler cannot be fair and impartial.
The judicial conduct commission cited several findings illustrating discourteous remarks to lawyers, including:
–He told a lawyer for indigent offenders, in front of jurors, that she was “wasting” everyone’s time and she was trying to “sneak stuff past” him. Outside the presence of jurors, he told the lawyer her “ability to practice law is very frustrating to me.” He also threatened to throw the lawyer out of the courtroom when she didn’t follow his instruction to file objections in writing.
–He told another defense lawyer: “You don’t have to like me, you don’t have to respect me, but you’ve got to follow my orders. And if you’re not going to do that, I’m going to have you thrown out of my courtroom.”
–He ordered one lawyer to stop asking prospective jurors about their views on homosexuality, stating, “Nobody here is going to admit to liking homosexuals.”
Seiler’s lawyer, Tom Watkins, told Texas Lawyer that his client intends to appeal the “unfair” reprimand. The comments highlighted by the commission came from hundreds of pages of transcripts, he said. “You can’t judge all of those statements unless you go through all of the trials,” Watkins said.
Watkins said Seiler has “the toughest docket in Texas,” hearing cases where the same lawyers appear over and over.
“The result is that some lawyers do not learn to behave in his court,” Watkins said. “And if the voters in Montgomery County find out that Judge Seiler is being reprimanded for trying to control lawyers, he’ll get re-elected.”
