2015.75: Phil Grant’s Ethics, or Lack Thereof

Montgomery County First Assistant DA Phil Grant is running for judge. Which means that he has to follow the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct, which says:

A judge shall abstain from public comment about a pending or impending proceeding which may come before the judge’s court in a manner which suggests to a reasonable person the judge’s probable decision on any particular case. This prohibition applies to any candidate for judicial office, with respect to judicial proceedings pending or impending in the court on which the candidate would serve if elected.

Which means that Phil Grant cannot ethically say the things that he says here. ((Yes, that’s my case. It’s a First Amendment case in Texas; the odds of my having a hand in it are good. Steve Jackson had the good sense to bring me aboard as his Law Lawyer for this issue. Unlike Phil, Steve has a handle on the First Amendment issue: it’s not about what that defendant did. As he says, “The statue does snare the guilty. But it also snares the innocent.”))

Phil and I have always gotten along just fine. We’ve never butted heads. He has commented here. But in 2012 I gave Kelly Case hell for dishonestly pandering to Scared White Republican Voters, and I’m not going to cut Phil any more slack than I’d cut Kelly.

Phil, is it too much to ask that you read the ethical rules that you have to follow as a judicial candidate?