The Judge Who Ruled on a Case He Couldn’t Hear

THE QUICK ANSWER In March 2026, the Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct issued a Public Admonition and an Order of Additional Education to Michael Towers, a Justice of the Peace in Bandera County, Texas. The Commission found that he ruled in an eviction case he did not have the legal authority to decide (after being told he lacked jurisdiction) and changed his ruling following a one-sided conversation with the winning side’s lawyer.

 

CASE FILE AT A GLANCE
Judge	Hon. Michael Towers, Justice of the Peace
Court	Justice of the Peace, Precinct 1, Bandera
County	Bandera County, Texas
CJC Number	25-0937
Sanction	Public Admonition and Order of Additional Education
Date Issued	March 17, 2026
Signed By	Gary L. Steel, Chairman, State Commission on Judicial Conduct

 

A Case About the Limits of a Court

Every court in Texas has a defined lane. A justice of the peace court can hear evictions, small claims, and minor civil and criminal matters but it cannot decide everything. Some questions are reserved, by law, for the district courts. When a judge rules on something outside that lane, the problem is not merely that the judge got an answer wrong. It is that the judge had no authority to give an answer at all.

This case file is about that boundary. It is the second Public Admonition we have examined in this series (the bottom rung of the Commission’s three-step disciplinary ladder) and, notably, the Bandera County judge here did something the judges in our harsher case files did not: when he reached unfamiliar territory, he stopped and asked for guidance. What happened after that is what brought the Commission to his courtroom.

An Eviction That Was Really About Ownership

In August 2024, an eviction suit was filed in Judge Towers’s court. On its face, an eviction is exactly the kind of case a justice of the peace handles. But this one had a complication: it involved a modular home, and the dispute turned on who actually owned it.

That distinction matters enormously. Under the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, an eviction case decides only one narrow question which is the right to immediate possession of a property. It does not, and cannot, decide who holds title, meaning legal ownership. And the Texas Government Code is explicit that a justice court has no jurisdiction over a suit for trial of title to land. Once an eviction becomes a fight about ownership, it has moved outside what a justice of the peace is allowed to decide.

To his credit, Judge Towers recognized he was in unfamiliar territory. The Commission’s findings note that, having never handled an eviction involving title to a modular home, he consulted the Texas Justice Court Training Center which is the body that trains and advises Texas justice courts. The training center told him plainly: he lacked jurisdiction over the case because of the title issue, and he should either dismiss it or put it on hold until a district court resolved the ownership question.

What the Judge Did Anyway

Judge Towers did not dismiss the case, and he did not stay it. According to the Commission’s findings, he did two other things instead.

First, in February 2025, he signed an order transferring the eviction case to the 198th District Court. A justice court does not have the authority to transfer a case to a district court that way; the proper path, as the training center had advised, was dismissal or a stay. Then, in May 2025, he held a hearing in the same case anyway.

It is the May hearing that produced the most serious finding. At the plaintiff’s counsel appeared in person and the defendant’s counsel participated by telephone. At the conclusion of the hearing, the Commission found, Judge Towers orally ruled that he was dismissing the eviction case. Then the defendant’s lawyer hung up the phone.

After that call ended (with only the plaintiff’s side still present) the Commission found that Judge Towers communicated with the plaintiff’s attorney, who told him she would prefer that, rather than a dismissal, the court enter a final judgment the plaintiff could appeal. That same day, Judge Towers signed an Eviction Judgment (in favor of the defendant) setting appeal bonds and awarding attorney’s fees. He had reversed course on his own ruling after a conversation that the other side was not part of and did not hear.

 

WHAT THE COURT’S OWN RECORDS SAID The Commission did not have to rely on outside accounts. Judge Towers’s own court staff documented the May hearing in the court records. In plain terms, the staff note recorded that the judge initially dismissed the case with both parties present and then, after the defense was released from the proceeding and the plaintiff’s attorney discussed appealing, decided instead to order a judgment, set appeal bonds, and award attorney’s fees to the defense. When a court’s own file shows the ruling changed after one side left the room, the problem is documented from the inside.

 

What the Judge Said in His Defense

Judge Towers responded to the Commission, and his explanations are part of the public record. They are notable for their candor.

On the substance, he told the Commission he believed that “the effect of a dismissal and a judgment for the defendant” were “tantamount to the same thing,” and that he had not expected the defendant’s counsel to have any issue with how he handled it. On the procedure, he acknowledged the heart of the problem directly: “In my eleven years on the bench I have never had the occasion to refer a case to District Court, so my vehicle to do so may not have been the most correct way to do so.”

That candor is worth crediting and it likely matters to where this case landed on the ladder. But the Commission’s findings make the underlying point clear. A dismissal and a judgment for the defendant are not, in fact, the same thing: they carry different legal consequences, different appeal rights, and here, different orders about bonds and fees. And changing a ruling after a one-sided conversation is a problem regardless of whether the judge believed the outcome was close enough not to matter. The other side is entitled to be in the room.

 

The Rules He Broke

The Commission concluded that Judge Towers’s conduct violated four provisions of the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct. It also identified the specific procedural and jurisdictional rules 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(8)	A judge shall accord every person with a legal interest in a proceeding — or that person’s lawyer — the right to be heard according to law.
Canon 6C(2)	A justice of the peace shall not, except as authorized by law, initiate or consider ex parte communications about the merits of a pending case.
Tex. R. Civ. P. 510.3(e)	In an eviction case, the court decides only the right to actual possession — not title (ownership).
Tex. Gov’t Code § 27.031(b)(4)	A justice court has no jurisdiction over a suit for trial of title to land.

 

Two distinct failures sit behind those citations. The first is jurisdictional and competence-based: Judge Towers signed a venue-transfer order and then entered an eviction judgment in a case he had been told, and the law confirmed, he lacked the authority to decide. The second is the ex parte communication which was talking with one side’s lawyer about the merits, and changing the result, after the other side had left.

The Sanction and Why an Admonition

The Commission issued a Public Admonition, paired with an Order of Additional Education. As we explained in the Introduction to this series, the admonition is the bottom rung of the three-step disciplinary ladder (below a warning, below a reprimand). The accompanying education order requires Judge Towers to complete two hours of mentored instruction specifically in eviction law, on top of his regular annual judicial education, within 60 days of being assigned a mentor.

Why the lowest rung? The contrast with earlier case files is instructive. This series has shown reprimands for a judge who berated children and released a mother from jail with a Post-it note, and for a judge who signed a knowingly false bench warrant. Set against that, Judge Towers’s conduct reads differently. He did not act out of cruelty or for an improper motive; the Commission’s findings describe a judge who hit an unfamiliar legal problem, actually sought guidance, and then mishandled the follow-through which is a procedural and competence failure rather than an abuse of power. He was also candid with the Commission about his own uncertainty. Tellingly, the order does not cite the constitutional “willful or persistent” misconduct standard at all. The pairing of the lowest sanction with a targeted education order fits that picture: the Commission treated this as a competence problem to be corrected, not a character problem to be condemned.

That said, an admonition is still a formal, public finding of judicial misconduct. It is now a permanent part of Judge Towers’s record. As with any sanction, he had 30 days to appeal it to a Special Court of Review.

How It Played in the Press

This admonition drew little to no dedicated news coverage (no television segments, no statewide write-ups that we could find). It appears in the Commission’s own public sanctions records and little else.

That quiet is itself part of the story this series tells. The dramatic cases make headlines; the routine ones do not. But a small-county eviction handled outside a justice court’s authority affects real litigants just the same (a winner and a loser, appeal bonds, attorney’s fees) and it still produces a public sanction on a judge’s permanent record. The Commission’s public discipline process exists precisely so that these cases are documented whether or not anyone outside Bandera County ever reads about them.

The Takeaway

There is something almost sympathetic in this case file, and it is worth saying plainly: a judge who hits an unfamiliar problem and calls the state’s own training center for help is doing something right. The failure here was not in asking. It was in not following the answer.

The lesson is about the limits of authority. A court’s jurisdiction is not a technicality a judge can route around because two outcomes seem close enough, or because the proper procedure is unfamiliar. When a justice court is told a case belongs in district court, the case belongs in district court. And no ruling (in any court, on any docket) should change shape because one side’s lawyer got a private word in after the other side hung up the phone. For anyone with a case in a Texas courtroom, the principle is the same one this series keeps returning to: the process is not an obstacle to the result. The process is what makes the result legitimate.

Where Is He Now?

Michael Towers remains on the bench. He continues to serve as the Justice of the Peace for Precinct 1 in Bandera County, and the Public Admonition does not remove him from office. By public accounts, he has served as a justice of the peace since 2014 and has also acted as the City of Bandera’s municipal judge.

He is also continuing in office. Judge Towers, a Republican, filed for re-election and was unopposed in the March 2026 primary; local reporting listed his Precinct 1 seat among the uncontested Bandera County races. He is set to appear on the November 2026 general election ballot.

On the discipline itself: we found no public record of an appeal to a Special Court of Review. Unless Judge Towers appealed, the Public Admonition stands, and the Order of Additional Education obligates him to complete the two hours of mentored training in eviction law. The admonition is permanent and public. If anything changes, the Gavel of Shame will follow up.

 

The Right Court, The Right Process Whether a case is in the right court, and whether it is handled the right way, can change everything about the outcome. At Deandra Grant Law, we know the courts of North Texas and how to protect our clients’ rights inside them. 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. 6

By Deandra Grant  •  Deandra Grant Law  •  Published May 2026

Sources

Primary source

• Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct, Public Admonition and Order of Additional Education of the Honorable Michael Towers, CJC No. 25-0937 (issued March 17, 2026). texas.gov
• Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct, Public Sanctions Issued FY 2026. texas.gov

Background

• Bandera Bulletin, “Bandera County Judge, Clerk races draw multiple candidates for 2026 primary” (December 2025). com
• Ballotpedia, “Bandera 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. Judge Towers provided written responses to the Commission, summarized above. This is general commentary on a public record, not legal advice.