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A state district court judge in Bexar County was publicly reprimanded by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct.
Mary Lou Alvarez, a civil court judge for the 45th District, was publicly reprimanded by the state commission for various reasons, including “failing to comply with the law and maintain professional competence” by missing several deadlines imposed by the Fourth Court of Appeals, for bias against the Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS), reflected in many overturned opinions as well as her treatment of one attorney whom she refused to appoint in cases.
The State Commission on Judicial Comment took issue with the multiple times the judge was found to have not complied with the Fourth Court of Appeals' rulings in a timely way, finding Alvarez was “engaging in willful and persistent conduct” that was opposed to the higher court’s rulings and “cast public discredit upon the judiciary. …”
Alvarez responded in a statement that she believed the allegations the commission ruled on against her were unfounded but that she respected their final rulings. She added that she would continue to make rulings “that are in the best interest of the children.”
The judge has often locked horns with the DFPS over its failures to place children in permanent homes. Many of her overturned opinions deal with a single case, in which a 16-year-old boy in DFPS custody was regularly leaving the hotel he was placed in by DFPS at night to carry on a suspected sexual relationship with a 62-year-old man.
“I simply was seeking to promote the best interest of the child by ensuring his attendance at school, appropriate assistance in catching up to his peers educationally, and supervision to prevent him from being trafficked as a sex worker," Alvarez wrote in her response to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct's questions.
In that case, which TPR wrote about in December 2023, the boy known in court records as J.D. had been kicked out of several foster and treatment placements.
Those involved in the case complained the state had not done enough to place him in a home. One involved party went so far as to call his family members independent of the agency to request he be placed with them — finding a distant relative in another state.
Throughout the case Alvarez’s orders for how the state should care for J.D. were regularly challenged and overturned as too prescriptive — violating the Separation of Powers clause.
Orders that would be likely within the rules against a parent, are not allowed against DFPS because it is an organ of the executive branch.
While Alvarez is one of few who have been reprimanded for their behavior by the commission over how her court deals with DFPS, she is not the only one to express discontent over how the department deals with kids in its care.
TPR discussed the issue with multiple attorneys and judges. The general consensus was that oftentimes if DFPS had been a parent, it would have been found to have neglected children in its care.
The state is currently in a 14-year federal lawsuit over its foster care system. The federal district judge in that case, Janis Jack, called the state’s system “broken.” Jack was removed from the case by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit last year for bias against DFPS and HHSC and her judicial temperament against the two bodies’ executives.
