Judge partly acquitted in alleged road rage incident won't be retried
Judge Guy Williams/Nueces County (Texas) Sheriff’s Office.
A South Texas judge who was accused of brandishing a gun in a road rage incident last year might return to the bench after a partial acquittal in March.
Judge Guy Williams was facing two felony accounts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for allegedly pointing a gun at a car’s driver and passenger. Jurors in Nueces County acquitted Williams on the count involving the driver, and deadlocked on the other count, according to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
The Texas attorney general’s office decided against retrying Williams on the second count, and a judge dismissed the count on Tuesday, the Caller Times reports. The state prosecutors said in a legal filing that jurors must have concluded Williams was entitled to a self-defense claim on the first count, and he should be entitled to the same claim on the second count, according to prior coverage by the Caller-Times.
Williams was suspended from the bench after his indictment. He was elected as a Republican in 2010 and 2014, and has about six months left in his term, but is not seeking re-election, the Caller-Times reports.
His legal troubles aren’t over, however. He was arrested in May on suspicion of public intoxication and resisting arrest after the vehicle he was riding in crashed. The State Commission on Judicial Conduct’s executive director, Eric Vinson, told the newspaper that public intoxication and resisting arrest don’t qualify as reasons for an automatic suspension.
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