Are elected judges given immunity when they break laws?
100+ felony bonds reduced by Travis County Justice of the Peace
AUSTIN (KXAN) — The release of an Austin man charged with capital murder after a Travis County Justice of the Peace granted him a significant bond reduction prompted a KXAN investigation. It uncovered that same judge has reduced or modified bonds for at least 100 additional defendants facing felony charges since she took office in January.
Aden Munoz, 18, was arrested on Feb. 13 and faced a Capital Murder charge. An Austin Municipal Court Judge required him to post a $750,000 bond. Less than four weeks later, court records show another judge reduced his original bond to $5,000, and he was released from custody.
Three days after Munoz was released from jail, the Travis County District Attorney‘s Office filed a motion to reinstate the original $750,000 bond, alleging a violation of Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Section 17.091, which requires the attorney representing the state receive reasonable notice of any proposed bail reduction and be given the opportunity to have a hearing on the proposed reduction for all first degree felony offenses as well as any offense listed in Article 42A.054 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure.
“No representative of the State was notified of any of these proceedings,” the motion stated.
A Texas Justice of the Peace has jurisdiction to perform magistrate duties in Texas, however, the criminal workload for JPs in Travis County typically involves class C criminal misdemeanors and various civil law duties, according to the Travis County website.
According to the OCA records, which are publicly available, of the 341 felony bond modifications Judge Jeffers processed since January 2025, 123 of those instances included bond reductions. The remaining 218 felony bond modifications handled by Judge Jeffers consisted of recategorizing the bonds from cash or surety bonds to personal bonds which consists of an administrative fee and/or very small percentage bond payment and then personal release with a promise/commitment to return for the hearing or trial date(s).
KXAN spoke with three judges who served as magistrates and set the original bonds on the cases in which Judge Jeffers reduced bond amounts. Each of them said they were unaware that Judge Jeffers had reduced felony bonds for cases that remained in their court’s jurisdiction. Some of those modifications happened as quickly as the next day after the establishment of the original bond amount.
In the course of this investigation, KXAN learned from a credible source that district court judges recently sent Judge Jeffers an email requesting and/or ordering her to discontinue the practice of modifying felony bonds after a different judge served as magistrate and determined the original bond type, amount and conditions.