Judge Garza Reprimanded for Bogus Court Summons

What Judge Garza Did

Marissa Garza is the elected Justice of the Peace for Precinct 3, Place 1, in Hebbronville, the seat of Jim Hogg County, a rural South Texas county of roughly 4,800 people. In October 2024, a local woman, Nelda Salazar, asked Garza to help her resolve a personal dispute with Raul Gonzalez Sr. over jointly owned property. No lawsuit or criminal case over the dispute was ever filed in Garza’s court.

Rather than referring the parties elsewhere, Garza issued a formal Summons commanding any peace officer in Texas to bring Gonzalez before her to answer for an offense against the State, specifically described in the document as a paperwork dispute over Salazar’s house. The Summons carried the standard printed warning that failing to appear would cause the court to issue a warrant for his arrest. It listed no cause number because there was no case.

In her written response to the Commission, Garza explained that the dispute was personal, that Salazar had asked her to mediate it, and that the Summons was her way of getting Gonzalez to come and sit down to discuss the situation. She acknowledged the Summons had not been issued in accordance with Article 15.03 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, which limits when a magistrate may issue a warrant or summons to cases involving an actual sworn complaint of an offense. She also told the Commission this was not an isolated choice: in a small town, she said, she had come to believe many personal disputes could be resolved by bringing people together to talk, and a summons was how she had gotten them there.

The Commission found that Garza’s use of a criminal summons to compel a private citizen into an unfiled dispute violated her duty to comply with and maintain competence in the law, lent the prestige of her office to advance Salazar’s private interests, and failed to treat Gonzalez with the patience, dignity, and courtesy Texas judges owe to anyone appearing before them, even involuntarily.

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). A public reprimand, the sanction here, sits above an admonition or warning on that ladder: it is reserved for conduct the Commission views as more serious than a first, explained lapse. Removal and involuntary suspension are a different track entirely, requiring a separate Review Tribunal or the Texas Supreme Court.

The Rules She Broke

How It Played in the Press

This one stayed almost entirely within official channels. It appears in the Commission’s own public sanctions list and in the Texas Bar Journal’s routine disciplinary roundup for July and August 2025, but no independent news outlet appears to have covered it, consistent with how far a reprimand out of a county of under 5,000 people tends to travel on its own.

Where Is She Now?

Nothing in the public record indicates further Commission action against Garza. Jim Hogg County’s own online payment and docket system continues to list Marissa M. Garza as the sitting judge of Justice of the Peace Precinct 3.

Sources

PRIMARY SOURCE

• State Commission on Judicial Conduct, Public Reprimand, In the Matter of the Hon. Marissa Garza, CJC No. 25-0303, issued May 5, 2025. scjc.texas.gov

REFERENCE

• State Commission on Judicial Conduct: Public Sanctions, Fiscal Year 2025. scjc.texas.gov
• Texas Bar Journal (July/August 2025): Disciplinary Actions, State Bar of Texas. texasbar.com
• Jim Hogg County: Justice of the Peace, Precinct 3 online payment and docket portal. ncourt.com

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