The door was answered by a pleasantly efficient woman who was clearly used to visitors at all times of day and night.  I was lead up the famous 17 stairs and shown into the sitting room on the first floor (second floor to us Americans).  For a moment, I held my breathe as I took in a familiar scene I had visited so many times in my mind.  The curtained bay window, fireplace, bookshelves and chairs appeared just as I had envisioned from my readings.  Most breathtaking of all, there, slouched in a red velvet chair with a violin case at his feet, was the man with the one singular mind who could unravel the mystery of Judge Pratt's curiously dated orders -- Mr. Sherlock Holmes. His companion, John Watson, stood with one elbow on the mantle lighting a pipe and observing Holmes and his latest, nervous client, as he had done so many times before.


A long silence ensued during which I felt as if Holmes' piercing eyes were scanning me and deducing my innermost secrets and thoughts.  Finally, the doctor interrupted the awkward quiet by asking,"You are attorney Enos from Webster, Texas who sent Holmes the documents on your errant Judge?" 

"Yes, yes, none other," Holmes finally spoke as he waved me over to a stuffed chair near the fireplace.  "I trust your sick dog is going to survive your absence."

"How could you possibly deduce the man has an ill dog?" stammered Watson.

Holmes smiled but did not speak and instead pointed toward a laptop computer on a small side table.   My Facebook profile was open on the laptop, as was my recent posting about my sick German Shepard.    I chuckled and relaxed immeasurably as I sat on a somewhat lumpy chair just feet from the great detective.

Holmes picked up a stack of documents, which I recognized as the papers I had sent him by Fed Ex as soon as the grand jury's "No Bill" of Judge Pratt was announced.  "Why did you send me just documentation of the Bishop case when there are many others that caused you to believe this Judge Pratt may have backdated her orders?," Holmes asked. 

"I thought the Bishop case was sadly illustrative of all of the cases where it appears orders were backdated," I replied.

"This is the case where Judge Pratt switched custody of the children on temporary orders mid-way through the hearing without even hearing the mother's case and the one where she awarded the Amicus Attorney $10,000 in fees without hearing evidence and signed an order for those fees presented by the amicus outside the presence of the other attorneys?" asked Watson.  I nodded and he continued.  "Surely there is some recourse when a judge so totally ignores proper procedure and due process?"

This time I shook my head.  "Sadly, such behavior can only be addressed on an appeal or mandamus action, which most parents in such cases cannot afford.  That behavior is not even usually grounds for recusing the judge, as bad as it is," I said.



"Very well," Holmes interrupted.  "Let us review the facts."  I explained the Bishop case (no. 2003-55818) was (and still is) a very contentious child custody modification case in Judge Pratt's court.

Two of the attorneys involved in the Bishop case had told me stories of the sort so often told about Judge Pratt.  The temporary orders hearing in this case was heard over several days because Judge Pratt would show up late and stop the proceedings early, so the parents and lawyers had to return on later days to resume the hearing.  One attorney told me that everyone involved in this case appeared at one of the hearing dates at the time set by Judge Pratt, but waited over two hours for the judge to appear.  At one point, the lawyer overheard the clerks saying that the judge was in the back watching tennis on the television.

Pratt heard evidence in the case on January 15, 2013, February 1, 2013, March 1, 2013, April 1, 2013 and April 2, 2013 according to an order signed by Judge Pratt on April 4, 2013.  On March 1, Judge Pratt had orally ordered that custody of the children would be switched from the mother to the father and that the mother would only have visitation through the SAFE supervised visitation program.  This ruling was made in the middle of the hearing before the mother had presented her case.  The mother's attorney told me she checked regularly with the Court Coordinator between April 2 and May 7, calling or going to the court several times a week to see if  Judge Pratt had signed an order that said what she had orally ruled on March 1.  Each time, the attorney was told that the judge had not yet signed an order. 

On May 7, 2013, the Amicus Attorney was sent a signed order entitled "Interim Orders" via fax from Judge Pratt's court dated and signed by Judge Pratt,"April 1, 2013."  The first page of that order sent by fax does not have a file stamp on it.  The District Clerk's web site displays a version of the same order that is file stamped "April 1, 2013" and is initialed by a deputy clerk.  That clerk did not start working in Judge Pratt's court until April 24, 2013.

The parties and attorneys were in front of Judge Pratt on April 1 and apparently April 2, 2013, yet Judge Pratt did not tell them that she had supposedly signed an order on April 1 nor was a copy of that order given to the parties and attorneys on either day.  The mother's attorney on April 3 filed a motion to switch the children back to the mother and a motion to prevent the amicus attorney from being present when the judge interviewed the children in chambers.  Judge Pratt on April 4 signed the order about the amicus and signed an order partially granting the mother's motion filed April 3 as to counseling and injunctions but not as to switching the children back to the mother (Pratt hand wrote changes on the order the mother's attorney had submitted).  Again, Pratt did not inform the attorneys that she had supposedly signed the Interim Orders on April 1. 

It should also be noted that on May 31, 2013 (according to the District Clerk's web site), Judge Pratt signed an order awarding the Amicus Attorney another $10,000.00 in attorney's fees without a hearing or evidence.  That order is signed only by the Amicus Attorney "approved as to form only" and there are not even signature blocks for the other attorneys.  Oddly, that order is hand dated and signed by Judge Pratt "May 16, 2013" but is file stamped "March 8, 2013" and initialed by the same clerk who did not start work in Pratt's Court until April 24, 2013.  No date of hearing is filled in on the order presumably because no hearing was held.  It is not clear how Judge Pratt could legally sign this order without notice to the parents, a hearing and evidence.  It is also not clear how this order came to be filed and signed only by the Amicus Attorney.  It is very unusual that the order was prepared without signature blocks for the attorneys representing the parents.  That same Amicus Attorney hosted a fundraiser for Judge Pratt at the Wedge Restaurant in August 2013.

Holmes then inquired about the procedure followed when court orders are signed.  I explained that the judge signs the orders at her bench or in her chambers and, at that time, a hand written docket entry was made by the judge (they are now typed into the computer system).  The signed order then went to the clerks who: (1) entered information about the order in the computer, and (2) sent the order to be scanned before it is returned to the court's paper file.



Holmes sat in silence for several long moments slowly drawing on the pipe Watson had lit and handed him while I had summarized the case.  Holmes' eyes were closed and his forefinger tapped slowly on his forehead.  Finally, his eyes flew open and he delivered his logical analysis: 

• It is unlikely that Judge Pratt would sign an order on April 1 if the hearing did not finish until April 2, yet two orders signed by Judge Pratt on April 4 say the hearing concluded on April 2.  However, perhaps there was a typo and no hearing was held on April 2 or perhaps Pratt signed the order on April 2 and accidentally wrote April 1.   When discussing Judge Pratt, it seems a waste of time to discuss what a judge would normally do.  The point is what this unusual judge did and when. 
• If the parties and attorneys were in front of Judge Pratt on April 1 and April 2, one would have expected the judge to have informed the parties that she was signing an order. Likewise, if Judge Pratt signed two additional orders involving this case on April 4, one would have assumed that would have been opportunity to inform the lawyers that the very important "Interim Orders" had been signed on April 1.  However, expecting logical or proper behavior from this judge is apparently a little too much to ask for.  While Pratt should have told the attorneys she had signed an order, the fact that Pratt acted oddly and did not tell them does not necessarily prove when she signed the order. 
• If Judge Pratt really signed  the order on "Interim Orders" on April 1, 2013, why was it not faxed to the Amicus Attorney until May 7, 2013?  Presumably, Judge Pratt does not do her own faxing.  Perhaps she gave the order to a clerk and the clerk set it aside and did not get to it until five weeks later.  While it may be sloppy work, the delay in faxing the order is not itself proof of when the order was signed.   

• How could  it possibly be that the version of  the order on "Interim Orders"  faxed to the Amicus Attorney on May 7, 2013 does not have the clerk's file stamp that says "April 1, 2013" and yet the version of this order imaged by the District Clerk clearly has the April 1 file stamp on it?  If the order was file stamped on April 1, then it would have had the file stamp on it when it was faxed on May 7.  But, perhaps, a copy of the signed order was given to the clerk to fax and the file stamped order was not faxed.  If one assumes the the clerk rolled back her stamp and did not really stamp "April 1" on the order until after it was faxed on May 7, then the lack of a file stamp on the fax is explained.  
• If the deputy clerk who initialed that file stamp on  the order on "Interim Orders" did not start working in the 311th until April 24, 2013, how could she have file stamped it on April 1?  Presumably, the clerk rolled back her file stamp and that is why she was forced to resign.  The question is when did the clerk do her stamping and why did she violate clear protocol and roll her stamp back?  Did the judge ask her to do so or did the clerk do it on her own thinking her file stamp needed to match the handwritten date the judge had put on the order?   If the signed order was found in some neglected stack of documents the clerks had missed or ignored, could that explain why the clerk rolled back the date stamp to "cover up" for a clerk's error? 

"But Holmes," cried Watson,"Surely all of this evidence shows that more likely than not that Judge Pratt backdated this order, particularly when one considers all of the other cases with similar circumstances which all seemed to have occurred at roughly the same time!  Could these extraordinary series of mistakes and coincidences have happened over and over in the same court?"

Holmes coolly dismissed Watson's emotional outburst with a wave of his hand.  "Logically, my dear chap, it could have happened in a way that did not involve backdating.  Judge Pratt, signed the order but did not tell anyone (including her own court coordinator) and either kept the signed order or gave it to the clerk and the order did not come to light until 5 weeks later, it was faxed and then file stamped by a clerk who improperly rolled back the file stamp to April 1.  Without proof that some other scenario occurred, that sequence of events, however extraordinarily unlikely, is entirely possible and thus there was no proof beyond a reasonable doubt the judge committed the crime of tampering with a government document.  The very questionable behavior involving the order for the amicus fees does not itself prove that the judge backdated another order in the same case."

"Indeed it is," I sighed in resignation,"But, in Texas it is not a crime for a judge to be lazy, to not follow the law or procedures, to delay rulings, to run a disorganized courtroom or to award large fees to her campaign contributors without hearing evidence."

Holmes was still not finished however.  "The key would be the clerks who handled these orders and perhaps what was written on the court's docket sheet.  Bring me those clerks and the docket sheet and perhaps I will have a different answer for you."

I shrugged in frustration.  "I do not know if any or all of the clerks testified to the grand jury and I assume the clerk who initialed the false file stamp and had to resign asserted her Fifth Amendment rights and did not testify.  I understand that no immunity offer was made by the D.A. to that clerk and I am at a loss to understand why.  We simply do not know what the clerks know and what, if anything, they told the grand jury."

"So I assumed," muttered Holmes.  "Let us ask good Mrs. Watson to bring us some tea and we can discuss why an independent prosecutor was not sought given that the District Attorney is of the same political party as Judge Pratt and utilizes the same political consultant as Pratt in her re-election campaign."  And so our discussion on the case of the curiously dated court order left the realm of logic and headed into more philosophic areas of how the world should be, not how it is. 

 **** THE END ***  

Notes:

1. This fictional exercise in logical analysis shows how a grand jury which really was presented all of the available evidence and provided a detailed explanation of how family courts handle orders, could decide that there was not enough proof to justify charging a judge with a crime.  I wrote this for the conspiracy theorists who are so sure the D.A. did not really try to get Pratt indicted.  The great unknown of course is what exactly was presented to the grand jury, which clerks testified, what were they asked and how was the paper work flow in the 311th explained.  Given grand jury secrecy, we will never know the answers to those questions.  I filed my complaint with the District Attorney because the evidence certainly made it appear that Judge Pratt had backdated court orders and I knew the D.A. was far more capable of investigating and getting to the truth than I am.  If Pratt really did not commit a crime, then she deserved to be no billed and not charged.     

2.  The order in question in the Bishop case supposedly signed on April 1, 2013 is now on the District Clerk web site in two forms: the version with the clerk's file stamp that clearly was not stamped on April 1 and a different version without the file stamp and with fax confirmation pages.  It is as if after my complaint, that someone found the version of the order without a bogus file stamp and then somehow filed that with the District Clerk.  It is not clear to me how the District Clerk would accept for filing a document that is not file stamped and which was added seven months after it was supposedly signed.  A curious case just got curiouser!