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Posted (edited)

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.

Edited by ChickenSandwich
Posted

Austin getting what they blindly voted for.  Gotta admit, it's bad when even the DA's office is questioning the Judge on those reduced bails.  I guess because it wasn't caused by their intentional delays, they're mad someone's doing their jobs?

Posted
4 hours ago, PvilleStang said:

Austin getting what they blindly voted for.  Gotta admit, it's bad when even the DA's office is questioning the Judge on those reduced bails.  I guess because it wasn't caused by their intentional delays, they're mad someone's doing their jobs?

I'm not sure that's the case.

On her website, this is about the closest thing I could find about reducing bail:

Quote

JP5 can also play a role in helping to provide bail hearings as it encompasses 3 courtrooms. I feel strongly about our citizens having the right to counsel at their first appearance and want to play a role in making this available to our citizens who find themselves charged with a crime.

I would not have interpreted that to mean she was going to violate the law to lower bail for defendants.

https://www.tanisaforjudge.com/copy-of-home

Posted

LO-FUCKING-L!

Quote

“We’re positioning our investments in the homelessness response system as one of the city of Austin’s top funding priorities, which is critical. And you’ve heard it before, we’ll say it again, our budget is our moral compass. Where we put our money is where our heart is,” Austin City Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison said at the time.

https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/homelessness-spending-likely-to-be-focal-point-of-austin-budget-conversations/

  • Rage+1 1
Posted

Evidently a woman accidentally shot herself in the hand yesterday in the produce section of the Mueller HEB.  She allegedly had a gun in her purse and she reached in and whammo.

Out of all the HEBs in Texas, I would have never guessed that the Mueller location would see a self-shootout.

  • Like 1
Posted
3 hours ago, Texas Jeff said:

Evidently a woman accidentally shot herself in the hand yesterday in the produce section of the Mueller HEB.  She allegedly had a gun in her purse and she reached in and whammo.

Out of all the HEBs in Texas, I would have never guessed that the Mueller location would see a self-shootout.

It's the epicenter of where people who didn't grow up in Texas (and therefore are less likely to learn how to handle firearms growing up) live around these parts.  Makes sense to me as a self-inflicted wound story.  If she had shot someone else, then yeah, I would be surprised.

Posted
2 hours ago, Samson's Wig said:

It's the epicenter of where people who didn't grow up in Texas (and therefore are less likely to learn how to handle firearms growing up) live around these parts.  Makes sense to me as a self-inflicted wound story.  If she had shot someone else, then yeah, I would be surprised.

Careless assholes are not in short supply anywhere…..

 

  • Fuck Around and Find Out 1
Posted
1 hour ago, royiv said:

Maybe every man, woman and child shouldn’t be carrying a deadly weapon.

She must have been part of the Mueller well-regulated militia.  

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
Posted
23 minutes ago, Your Mom said:

She must have been part of the Mueller well-regulated militia.  

They're armed and ready to ensure every neighborhood becomes a soulless clone of walkable, yet still unaffordable, communities across the country.  With enough vigilance, we'll all be living in an undifferentiated hellscape of brightly painted cheap building materials stretching from one coast to the other.  This nine-fingered hero is doing us all a service, really. 

  • Haha 1
Posted
46 minutes ago, Your Mom said:

She must have been part of the Mueller well-regulated militia.  

Have you seen all the brown people who don't live there who show up to fish that pond? They need that militia.

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