THE QUICK ANSWER

In April 2026, the Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct issued a Public Warning to Melissa Morris, a Harris County criminal district judge. The Commission found that she ended community supervision early for four defendants who had pleaded guilty to child sex crimes and were required to register as sex offenders (something a Texas judge is specifically barred from doing) breached grand jury secrecy, and was discourteous to a prosecutor.

 

CASE FILE AT A GLANCE
Judge Hon. Melissa Morris
Court 263rd District Court, Houston
County Harris County, Texas
CJC Numbers 24-1101 & 25-0393
Sanction Public Warning
Date Issued April 23, 2026
Signed By Ken Wise, Vice Chair, State Commission on Judicial Conduct

 

A Warning Built on Three Separate Problems

Most of the case files in this series turn on a single course of conduct. This one is different: the Commission’s Public Warning of Judge Melissa Morris rests on three distinct findings, drawn from two separate complaints. One of them (the early discharge of convicted child sex offenders from their supervision) is the kind of error the law specifically anticipates and specifically forbids.

This is the second Public Warning we have examined. As we explained in the Introduction to this series, the warning is the middle rung of the Commission’s three-step disciplinary ladder so it’s above an admonition but below a reprimand. It is also, in the words of the news coverage this case attracted, “one of the more serious sanctions” the Commission issues.

Ending Probation the Law Said She Could Not End

The most serious finding concerns four criminal cases. In each, according to the Commission, the defendant had pleaded guilty to a sex crime involving a child and was required to register as a sex offender under Chapter 62 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure. Each had been placed on deferred adjudication community supervision which is a form of probation.

Here the law is not ambiguous. Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 42A.111(b) allows a judge to end deferred adjudication early and discharge a defendant but it contains an explicit carve-out: the judge may not do so for a defendant required to register as a sex offender under Chapter 62. For this category of case, early discharge is simply off the table.

The judge may dismiss the proceedings and discharge a defendant before the expiration of the period of deferred adjudication community supervision if, in the judge’s opinion, the best interest of society and the defendant will be served, except that the judge may not dismiss the proceedings and discharge a defendant charged with an offense requiring the defendant to register as a sex offender under Chapter 62.

 

The Commission found that Judge Morris nonetheless signed orders (the “Discharge Orders”) early-terminating community supervision in all four cases, declaring each defendant “discharged according to law.” There was a real-world dimension to this. The Commission’s findings note that all four defendants had been deported after sentencing, and that Harris County’s Community Supervision and Corrections Department had recommended warrants be issued in case any of them re-entered the United States. Ending the supervision cuts against that safeguard.

When the Harris County District Attorney’s Office learned of the Discharge Orders, it moved to reconsider, and then, when that did not resolve the matter, filed petitions for writs of mandamus asking the appellate courts to vacate the orders. Before those higher courts ruled, Judge Morris set the Discharge Orders aside herself, which made the writ petitions moot. In other words: the error was ultimately undone but only after the District Attorney’s Office escalated the matter toward the appellate courts.

The Grand Jury Email

The second finding involves grand jury secrecy. The Commission found that in April 2024, after law enforcement sought certain pretrial-monitoring records through a grand jury subpoena, Judge Morris forwarded that subpoena email chain to the defendant’s defense attorney.

Grand jury proceedings are confidential by law. Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 20A.202(b) requires that a subpoena relating to a grand jury investigation be kept secret to the extent and for as long as necessary to prevent unauthorized disclosure. Forwarding that material to defense counsel is a breach of that secrecy.

Judge Morris acknowledged the breach to the Commission. She described it as a single mistake, made as a (in her words) “novice jurist” trying to make sure she was not committing a different ethical violation by engaging in improper one-sided (i.e. ex parte) communications. It is a candid explanation, and a revealing one: in trying to avoid one rule’s tripwire, she crossed another.

The Email to the Prosecutor

The third finding concerns courtesy. During the hearings on the District Attorney’s motions to reconsider the Discharge Orders, the State was represented by an assistant district attorney named Ryan Kent. The Commission found that in December 2024, Judge Morris sent Kent an email (copying the District Attorney’s Office Appellate and Trial Bureau chiefs, and the incoming District Attorney-elect) attaching the Texas Lawyer’s Creed, alleging a lack of professionalism and disrespect on Kent’s part, and closing with a pointed line invoking the incoming District Attorney by name.

Judge Morris defended the email to the Commission. She said it was not meant as a threat but as a reminder of the professionalism expected in her courtroom, and she denied that it was discourteous, made in bad faith, or the product of bias. The Commission saw it differently. They concluded that, in sending it, she failed to be patient, dignified, and courteous toward a lawyer appearing before her. A judge who believes a lawyer has behaved unprofessionally has tools to address it on the record; a pointed email up the prosecutor’s chain of command, the Commission found, was not the proper one.

 

WHY THESE RULES EXIST

The sex-offender carve-out. The Legislature decided that defendants required to register as sex offenders should not have their supervision ended early. That judgment belongs to the Legislature. A judge does not have discretion to set it aside, however well-intentioned the reason.

Grand jury secrecy. Grand jury investigations are confidential so that evidence and witnesses are protected before charges are decided. Disclosing subpoena material to one side undermines that protection.

A judge’s good intentions (saving the county money, avoiding a different mistake) do not override what the law requires. The rules are the rules precisely so the outcome does not depend on any one judge’s view of them.

 

The Rules She Broke

 

The Commission concluded that Judge Morris’s conduct violated three provisions of the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct, along with the Texas Constitution. It also identified the two criminal-procedure statutes at the center of the case:

 

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.
Canon 3B(4) A judge shall be patient, dignified, and courteous to lawyers and others the judge deals with in an official capacity.
Texas Constitution, Art. V, § 1-a(6)A A judge shall not engage in willful or persistent conduct that is clearly inconsistent with the proper performance of judicial duties or that discredits the judiciary.
Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art. 42A.111(b) A judge may not dismiss the proceedings and discharge a defendant required to register as a sex offender under Chapter 62.
Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Art. 20A.202(b) A subpoena relating to a grand jury proceeding must be kept secret to prevent unauthorized disclosure.

 

Unlike the earlier Public Warning in this series (Case File No. 5, which involved only delay) this order does cite the constitutional “willful or persistent” misconduct standard. The Commission found that Judge Morris’s conduct, taken together, met it.

The Sanction and Where It Sits on the Ladder

The Commission issued a Public Warning. As we have explained throughout this series, the warning is the middle rung of the three-step ladder making it more serious than an admonition, less than a reprimand. Because it is public, Judge Morris’s name and the Commission’s findings are now a permanent part of the public record.

Where this case sits on the ladder is worth thinking through, because the underlying subject matter (child sex offenders) is as serious as it gets. Two things appear to have shaped the outcome. First, the Commission’s findings frame the conduct as legal error rather than corruption or improper motive: Judge Morris said she believed the early discharges would save the county time and money, and the Commission did not find she acted in bad faith. Second, the error was corrected. Judge Morris set the Discharge Orders aside before the appellate courts had to. Those factors help explain a warning rather than a reprimand. But the Commission still invoked the constitutional “willful or persistent” standard and still placed this on the middle rung which is a clear signal that competence failures with this kind of public-safety stakes are treated seriously.

As with any sanction, Judge Morris had 30 days to appeal the Public Warning to a Special Court of Review. News coverage at the time noted she might do so.

How It Played in the Press

Unlike some of the quieter cases in this series, this Public Warning drew substantial coverage. Houston’s ABC13 (KTRK) reported it, as did statewide outlets including Texas Scorecard and The Texan, and it was picked up more widely from there. Several reports placed it in a broader context: the Commission issued sanctions to more than one Harris County judge in the same round, and reporting noted that early-termination orders for registered sex offenders had been an issue across multiple Harris County criminal courts and not Judge Morris’s court alone.

Coverage also noted, fairly, that this was not the first time Judge Morris had drawn public attention: the District Attorney’s Office had previously sought to remove her from a domestic-violence retrial, an effort another judge denied. That dispute is not part of this Commission case and produced no misconduct finding. We mention it only because the news coverage did, and because this series is careful to keep the focus where the Commission put it: on the three findings in this Public Warning, and nothing more.

The Takeaway

The throughline of this case file is a principle this series keeps returning to: a judge’s good intentions do not substitute for the law. The Commission did not find that Judge Morris acted corruptly. By the order’s own account, she thought she was saving public resources, and she thought she was avoiding a different ethical misstep. But the Legislature had already decided that registered child sex offenders cannot have their supervision ended early, and the law had already made grand jury subpoenas confidential. Those decisions were not hers to revisit.

For anyone trying to understand how the system is supposed to work, that is the lesson. The guardrails (a statute’s carve-out, a secrecy rule, the expectation of courtroom courtesy) do not bend to a judge’s sense of what would be efficient or appropriate in the moment. When they are crossed, the prosecution can escalate, the appellate courts can be asked to step in, and the Commission can place a public sanction on the record. Each of those things happened here.

Where Is She Now?

Melissa Morris remains on the bench. She continues to preside over the 263rd District Court in Houston, and the Public Warning does not remove her from office. She has served as the court’s judge since January 2023.

She is also running for re-election. Judge Morris, a Democrat, is on the ballot in the November 3, 2026, general election, where she faces Republican Jason Campo, a Harris County prosecutor. Her current term ends in early 2027. Because the Public Warning issued in the spring of an election year, it is part of the public record voters will have in front of them. What they make of it is their decision.

On the discipline itself: news coverage at the time of the warning indicated Judge Morris might appeal to a Special Court of Review. As of this writing, we found no public record of a decision on any such appeal. Unless and until that changes, the Public Warning stands as a permanent, public part of her record. If anything changes, the Gavel of Shame will follow up.

 

The Law Sets the Limits — Make Sure Yours Are Protected

What a court can and cannot do is fixed by statute — and knowing those limits is part of protecting a client. At Deandra Grant Law, we hold the courts to the law on behalf of the people we represent. If you are facing a DWI or criminal charge in Dallas, Tarrant, Collin, Denton, Rockwall, or McLennan County, put our experience to work for you.

Call (214) 225-7117  •  texasdwisite.com

 

The Gavel of Shame  •  Case File No. 7

By Deandra Grant  •  Deandra Grant Law  •  Published May 2026

Sources

Primary source

  • Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct, Public Warning of the Honorable Melissa Morris, CJC Nos. 24-1101 & 25-0393 (issued April 23, 2026). texas.gov

News coverage

  • ABC13 Houston (KTRK), “Harris County criminal court judge Melissa Morris sanctioned over handling of child sex crime cases.” com
  • Texas Scorecard, “Two Harris County Judges Sanctioned by State Commission.” com
  • The Texan, “State Commission Disciplines Harris County Judge Who Terminated Probation for Child Sex Offenders.” news

Election background

  • Ballotpedia, “Melissa Morris” and “Harris County, Texas, elections, 2026.” org

This post summarizes a public sanction issued by the Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct. All findings and quotations are drawn from that public order and from published news reporting. Judge Morris provided written responses to the Commission, summarized above, and news coverage indicated she might appeal. This is general commentary on a public record, not legal advice.