Legal News

House Committee Votes 28-0 to Boot Kent from Judiciary

By Ashby Jones

We gotta say: It struck us as so much wishful thinking. We’re talking about the plan by federal judge Samuel Kent to resign in the wake of his guilty plea and admission that he had in appropriate sexual conduct with two female court workers while a federal judge in Galveston. What struck us wasn’t the resignation part, but the timing of his planned resignation — 2010 — which would have allowed him to collect his $174,000 salary for another year.

If anything, the move seemed to irritate lawmakers in Washington. And Wednesday they showed that. The House Judiciary Committee, by a 28-0 vote, recommended that Kent be stripped of his lifetime appointment and his $174,000 salary.

According to the Houston Chronicle, the House is expected to approve impeachment proceedings before it recesses for the July 4th break. The matter would then move to the Senate. Click here, here and here for earlier posts about Judge Kent.

In a letter to the Judiciary Committee, Kent's lawyer, Dick DeGuerin, criticized the recent Congressional hearings, saying the "lurid testimony" to the panel by the two women was gratuitous. "Judge Kent's guilty plea to the felony of obstruction of justice presents sufficient grounds for impeachment," DeGuerin wrote.

Kent pleaded guilty to obstruction for lying to judicial investigators about his sexual misconduct against McBroom and Wilkerson. He is scheduled to begin a 33-month prison sentence on June 15.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on June 11, 2009 (boomark / email).