Judge De La Cruz Admonished Over Truck Summons

What Judge De La Cruz Did

A Starr County resident, Jesse Clarke, asked Justice of the Peace Lamar De La Cruz for help getting back a 1980 Chevrolet pickup truck that had been sitting at Feliberto Bazan’s auto body shop in Garciasville for roughly ten years. The truck’s original owner had died, and Bazan knew it. No lawsuit or case over the truck was ever filed in De La Cruz’s court.

On June 3, 2022, De La Cruz telephoned Bazan and told him to come to her courtroom immediately to discuss the dispute. Bazan believed he was being officially summoned and showed up that afternoon, where De La Cruz, a constable, and Clarke were already waiting for him. The Commission found De La Cruz then facilitated a contentious mediation on the spot, which ended with Bazan handing the truck over to Clarke and paying him $500 for services that were never performed. Two weeks later, when Bazan asked De La Cruz for a formal copy of the summons so he could understand what case he had been ordered to appear in, there was none to give him: no case had ever been opened.

In her response to the Commission, De La Cruz described the episode as a business dispute between two constituents that she helped resolve informally to save them the cost of litigation. She insisted there was no case, cause number, or filed proceeding of any kind, and maintained that Bazan was never summoned or compelled to appear, that his attendance had been entirely voluntary. The Commission did not accept that framing: it found De La Cruz had summoned Bazan to court without any legal proceeding behind it, denied him a real opportunity to be heard or prepare, failed to treat him with the courtesy his position entitled him to, and had engaged in improper ex parte contact with Clarke about the dispute before Bazan was ever brought into it.

The Discipline Ladder (Texas)

The State Commission on Judicial Conduct issues sanctions, in order of severity, as admonitions, warnings, reprimands, and censures, either privately (confidential) or publicly (on the record), and can add an order of additional education to any of them. A public admonition, the sanction here, is the least severe sanction the Commission can issue on the public record. Removal and involuntary suspension are a different track entirely, requiring a separate Review Tribunal or the Texas Supreme Court.

A Repeat Pattern in This Series

This is the second file in this series built around a justice of the peace using the appearance of court authority to compel someone into an unfiled private dispute; File 29 covered Marissa Garza’s written criminal-style summons over a Jim Hogg County property dispute. De La Cruz’s version used a phone call instead of paper, and mediation instead of a ruling, but the underlying problem the Commission identified is the same one: a JP court’s authority only exists once a case is actually filed, and a judge cannot borrow that authority informally, however well-intentioned the goal of avoiding a lawsuit may be.

The Rules She Broke

How It Played in the Press

This one stayed within official channels: it appears in the Commission’s own public sanctions record without independent news coverage identified at publication.

Where Is She Now?

Nothing in the public record indicates further Commission action against De La Cruz. Starr County’s own listings continue to show her as the sitting Justice of the Peace for Precinct 6.

Sources

PRIMARY SOURCE

• State Commission on Judicial Conduct, Public Admonition and Order of Additional Education, In the Matter of the Hon. Lamar De La Cruz, CJC No. 22-1563, issued August 28, 2025. scjc.texas.gov

REFERENCE

• State Commission on Judicial Conduct: Public Sanctions, Fiscal Year 2025. scjc.texas.gov
• Starr County: Justice of the Peace. co.starr.tx.us

This post summarizes public judicial-discipline records and news reporting for general informational purposes. It is not legal advice.