THE QUICK ANSWER

In June 2026, the Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct publicly admonished visiting judge E. Mason Martin and ordered additional education, finding that he repeatedly failed to let a child’s guardian ad litem be heard in child-welfare cases which is a step Texas law makes mandatory.

 

CASE FILE AT A GLANCE
Judge Hon. E. Mason Martin (Visiting Judge)
Court Visiting Judge, Conroe
County Montgomery County, Texas
CJC Number 25-0232
Sanction Public Admonition & Order of Additional Education
Date Issued June 2026
Signed By Gary Steel, Chair, State Commission on Judicial Conduct

 

In a child-welfare case, the child at the center usually cannot speak for themselves. That is the whole reason Texas law provides for a guardian ad litem (often a trained volunteer through a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) program) to act as the child’s voice and tell the court what is in the child’s best interest. And Texas law does not leave it to chance: it requires the judge to make sure that voice is actually heard. A Montgomery County visiting judge drew a public admonition and an order of additional education for repeatedly failing to do exactly that.

This is a quieter entry than most in this series with no lawsuit, no dramatic outburst and no headline conduct. It is a competence problem. But in the kind of case where it happened, getting the procedure right is not a technicality. It is part of how the system keeps a child’s interests at the center of decisions about that child’s life.

What Happened

Judge Martin presided over a set of related child-welfare cases involving the same child, brought by the Department of Family and Protective Services. In each case, a CASA volunteer had been appointed to serve as the child’s guardian ad litem. The Commission found that across these proceedings, the guardian ad litem repeatedly could not get the chance to be heard that the law guarantees.

At one adversary hearing in May 2024, the guardian ad litem was present and asked to give a best-interest statement and the judge did not allow it. The guardian was finally permitted to testify at a later hearing, but only after the child’s attorney ad litem flagged the earlier error, and only after the court had already made its ruling. The pattern repeated in the next related case: at an adversary hearing that September, the guardian specifically asked to give a best-interest statement and report before the court ruled and was allowed to do so only after the attorney ad litem pressed the point. It happened again at an emergency hearing that December. At one stage the judge initially said the guardian’s testimony was “not necessary,” relenting only after concluding the guardian might have relevant input to offer.

What the Law Requires

Section 107.002(e) of the Texas Family Code is not ambiguous. Outside the narrow situation where the guardian is also serving as the attorney under the rules of evidence, the court shall ensure that a guardian ad litem has an opportunity to testify and to submit a report about the guardian’s recommendations on two things: the best interests of the child, and the reasons behind those recommendations. The word is shall which means it is a duty the court owes, not a request the guardian has to win.

The reason the Legislature made it mandatory is the same reason the role exists. A guardian ad litem, and a CASA volunteer in particular, is frequently the one participant in the courtroom whose only job is the child and not the State’s case, not a parent’s position, just the child’s welfare. Hearing that perspective before deciding is how a court makes sure a best-interest ruling is actually informed by the child’s best interest. Skipping it, even briefly, means the decision was made without an input the law treats as essential.

 

WHY THE GUARDIAN AD LITEM MUST BE HEARD

In a child-welfare case, the guardian ad litem (often a trained CASA volunteer) is frequently the one participant whose only job is the child. Section 107.002(e) of the Texas Family Code requires the court to ensure that voice has an opportunity to testify and submit a report on the child’s best interests. The word is “shall.” It is a duty the court owes, not a request the guardian has to win.

 

Why This Matters

The stakes in these cases are about as high as they get in a courtroom that is not a criminal one: where a child lives, who cares for them, and whether a family stays together. A ruling entered before the child’s advocate has been heard is a ruling missing something the law required first. The fact that the guardian was sometimes allowed to speak later, after a ruling had already issued, does not put the sequence back in order. What turned isolated moments into a discipline matter was the repetition. Time after time, it took the attorney ad litem stepping in to secure a right the court was supposed to protect on its own.

The Rules He Broke

The Commission concluded that Judge Martin failed to comply with and maintain professional competence in the law, in light of a clear statutory command:

Rule What It Requires
Canon 2A A judge shall comply with the law.
Canon 3B(2) A judge shall maintain professional competence in the law.
Tex. Fam. Code § 107.002(e) The court shall ensure that a guardian ad litem has an opportunity to testify and submit a report on the child’s best interests and the bases for those recommendations.

 

The Sanction

The Commission issued a public admonition and ordered Judge Martin to complete two hours of additional education with a mentor, specifically in the area of guardians ad litem, on top of his required judicial education for the year. The remedy fits the problem: this was treated as a correctable competence lapse rather than bias or bad faith, and the education requirement is aimed squarely at making sure it does not happen again.

How It Played in the Press

Unlike some entries in this series, this one never made headlines. There was no viral clip and no wave of outrage, and that silence fits the case. Child-welfare proceedings are confidential, the failure here was a quiet procedural one rather than a dramatic outburst, and the people at the center, a child and the volunteer speaking for that child, are not the kind of story that travels. That lack of attention is part of why a case like this matters. The protections that get skipped quietly, in courtrooms the public never watches, are exactly the ones that depend on the discipline system to catch them, because no one else is going to raise the alarm.

This Isn’t Martin’s First Time Before the Commission

The June 2026 admonition is not the first time Judge Martin’s name has appeared in the Commission’s public-sanctions record. In December 2004, while he held the elected County Court at Law No. 3 bench, the Commission disciplined him twice in the same proceeding. The first sanction, a public admonition, grew out of a December 2003 confrontation at the Montgomery County jail. Court security staff had put new measures in place for probable-cause hearings, including separating male and female inmates and posting a deputy at the hearing-room window. Frustrated by the policies, Judge Martin told the deputies to go find their own judge for the hearings, and when one watched through the window, he snapped at the deputy to “get your ugly face out of my sight.” The Commission found the outburst fell short of the patience, dignity, and courtesy a judge owes the people in his courtroom.

The second sanction, a public warning, was a step more serious. It happened during jury selection in a misdemeanor marijuana case in January 2004. A man on the jury panel said he thought the punishment for marijuana possession was too harsh, and he was brought up to the bench so the judge and the lawyers could decide whether to excuse him. According to the Commission’s findings, Judge Martin used the moment to dress the man down over his appearance. He told the prospective juror that the next time he came to court looking the way he did, the judge would put him in jail. He said that if he jailed the man that day for “looking contentious,” he would have him drug-tested. When the man replied that that was fine and that he was already tested at his job, Martin answered that he was glad the man was not a user and that he “ought to quit looking like one.” As the man tried to step away, Martin stopped him, telling him he had not been excused and ordering him to stand up straight, drop his hands to his sides, and “act like you know what you are doing here,” because, the judge said, he did not look like it.

Martin later told the Commission that he had treated the man this way because he perceived him to be a “street person.” The Commission found that the remarks manifested bias based on socioeconomic status and fell short of the courtesy the bench owes everyone in the room, in violation of the canons requiring judges to be patient and dignified and to avoid showing bias or prejudice.

The 2004 cases and the 2026 one are different in character. The earlier matters were about temperament and bias; the recent one is about a procedural duty left undone. Read together, though, they describe a judge whose conduct has drawn the Commission’s attention more than once across two decades on and around the bench.

Where Is He Now?

Mason Martin II is a former elected judge of County Court at Law No. 3 in Conroe who now sits as a visiting judge by assignment in Montgomery County. We could not confirm whether he is currently taking assignments.

A public admonition is permanent and public, and as the prior cases show, it is now one entry in a disciplinary record that spans more than twenty years. It would be part of what any court weighs before giving him an assignment. If his assignment status changes, the Gavel of Shame will follow up.

 

The Right to Be Heard Is the Floor, Not a Courtesy

Every kind of courtroom runs on the same foundation. The people the law entitles to be heard must actually be heard, in the right order. Deandra Grant Law defends that principle in criminal courts across Texas.

Call (214) 225-7117  •  texasdwisite.com

 

The Gavel of Shame  •  Case File No. 22

By Deandra Grant  •  Deandra Grant Law  •  Published June 2026

 

Sources

Primary source

  • Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct, Public Admonition and Order of Additional Education of the Honorable E. Mason Martin, CJC No. 25-0232 (June 2026). texas.gov

Reference

  • Texas CASA — the role of a Court Appointed Special Advocate / guardian ad litem. org
  • Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct, Public Admonition of the Honorable E. Mason Martin II, CJC No. 04-0427-CC (Dec. 2004) — prior discipline. texas.gov
  • Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct, Public Warning of the Honorable E. Mason Martin II, CJC No. 04-0466-CC (Dec. 2004) — prior discipline. texas.gov

 

This post summarizes the findings of a public sanction issued by the Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct. All quotations and findings are drawn from that public order. It is general commentary on a public record, not legal advice.