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Benson\u2019s court coordinator said the judge would not comment on the matter. Friday morning, her courtroom was locked. A sign on the door said masks or face coverings were required for entry.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Benson has presided over Dallas County Court at Law No. 1, a civil law court, since 2006. She was defeated in the March 3 Democratic primary by Erin Nowell, a former appellate court judge, but will continue to serve until the end of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The written complaint about Benson\u2019s policies, first reported by The Texas Lawbook, was sent last week to Administrative Judge Ray Wheless, who presides over the region that includes Dallas County. It was sent by attorney Brian Hail on behalf of his client, Scott\u00a0Frenkel, also a lawyer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Frenkel was among the attorneys involved in a February medical malpractice case before Benson when a bailiff denied him entry to the courtroom for refusing to wear a mask, Hail wrote in the complaint. Frenkel refused the order because he can\u2019t wear a covering over his nose and mouth for long, Hail said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Frenkel told the bailiff that the order was unlawful and that he would not put on a mask,\u201d Hail wrote. \u201cMr. Frenkel was given the choice of entering wearing a mask, leaving or continuing to argue and \u2018ending up on the 7th floor,\u2019\u201d Hail wrote. \u00a0<\/p>\n
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The 7th floor is where a jail holding area is located, the lawyer said, and is often used for people found in contempt of court.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo basically, mask up, get out or go to jail are the three options for her courtroom,\u201d Hail said during a phone interview with The News. \u201cI had heard that this issue has been raised before [with Benson] and has been ignored, but we\u2019re not going to let it be ignored anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hail’s complaint said one of Frenkel’s associates had to try the case without Frenkel in the courtroom.<\/p>\n
Wheless confirmed that the mask issue has been a persistent one with Benson. But he said he didn\u2019t learn until this week she was still mandating them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cI told her in December 2023, you\u2019re going to get in trouble with the commission,\u201d Wheless said, referring to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, which investigates allegations of judicial misconduct. \u201cI told her you have no legal authority to do that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Blake Hawthorne, clerk of the state Supreme Court, didn\u2019t respond Friday to multiple messages from The News as to whether Benson had sent a response by the deadline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A judge’s gavel rests on a book of law. (Dreamstime\/TNS) Dreamstime\/TNS A Dallas County judge\u2019s continued insistence on…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":799383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1596,358,325183,325800,290169,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-799382","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-texas","11":"tag-tp-courts","12":"tag-tp-covid-19","13":"tag-tp-dallas","14":"tag-tx","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116581443096908164","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/799383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}