Legal News

Key Evidence: Texas Judge Indicted on Bizarre Mischief Charges

By Ashby Jones

What is it with Texas and judges, anyway? No sooner do we finish with the Sam Kent saga that we’re hit with another bizarre tale of a Lone Star judge.

Woody Ray Densen, a state district judge in Houston, was indicted today by a Harris County grand jury on a felony charge of criminal mischief after he was captured on video tampering with his next-door neighbor's car. (We just report it, LBers; we don’t make this stuff up.)

According to the Chron, Densen was recorded on a surveillance camera walking by his neighbor's 2006 Range Rover and making contact with the vehicle twice on May 23. The next-door neighbor, Adam Kleibert, discovered a series of scratches made by a key to the rear door of his vehicle. The damages totaled nearly $3,000, Kliebert said. Click here for the Houston Chronicle story, which includes the surveillance video allegedly showing Densen in the act. Check it out, LB readers; it’s really pretty remarkable. (Hat tip: ABA Journal).

Neither Densen nor his attorney, Robert Pelton, was reached by the Chron for comment.

So why in blazes did Kleibert have a surveillance camera set up outside his townhouse? Well, it seems he kept finding scratches and damages to his Range Rover and his ex-girlfriend's Mercedes.

In a secretly videotaped conversation the next day, Densen told Kliebert he didn't know who damaged the vehicle, but suggested the vandalism might have occurred because the SUV was partially blocking the sidewalk.

"There is a certain irony in this - an unfortunate irony," said Houston defense attorney Patrick McCann, a past president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association who signed the complaint filed against Densen with the state Commission on Judicial Conduct two years ago.

"This has been a bad year for judges generally," said Houston defense attorney Patrick McCann to the Chron. McCann, a past president of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association, was referring not only to Judge Kent, but former Brazoria County court-at-law judge James Blackstock, who resigned last year after pleading guilty to official oppression and no contest to misdemeanor assault. "There may be a perception among some folks that (judges) can do what they wish, and that's simply not true for any of us.”

Photo: iStockPhoto

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on June 18, 2009 (boomark / email).