The F-U Judge
Have you noticed the F-word is finding its way into our political fights… and now into the courtroom? A Fort Bend County Judge got punished for being the F-U JUDGE. But will voters see it as an example of strength from the bench?
The F-U Judge
“I love this new trend where politicians say fuck.”
“And what a colossal fuck up this is.”
“What’s the word? Fuck. That’s the word they don’t like.”
“No fucking way.”
“Burning down the fucking country.”
“The President of the United States uses it,” Judge Rogers said.
He sure did, right there in the Oval Office while threatening Venezuela’s strongman.
We’ve come a long way since George Carlin uttered those 7 words you’re not supposed to say.
“If you are shooting a criminal in Ok, it’s the all-American thing. Dirty fucking crook. But if you’re with the bishop’s wife at lunch, it’s better not to ask for the goddamn lettuce.”
Boy have times changed.
“It’s become a way for politicians to signal to the public that they are not just regularly mad about something, but really fucking serious.”
Here you can watch this Fort Bend County, Texas, district judge drop the F-bomb at a couple of defense lawyers.
“The attorney made another comment. I turned around and said, ‘Don’t mess with me in my courtroom,’” Judge Rogers said.
“But that’s not the word you used,” Dolcefino said.
“No,” Judge Rogers said.
Actually it was “Don’t fuck with me in my court.”
“Do you regret saying it?” Dolcefino asked.
“I don’t, I think they deserved it,” Judge Rogers said.
We love to watch the good guys win.
That’s why we honor our superheroes, like Captain America.
A cultural icon since WW2.
He never talked dirty in the comic strips.
In fact Steve Rogers, that’s Captain America’s real name, he is like a language watchdog in the Marvel Avengers movies.
“Shit”
“Language”
But today’s Captain America is a tad more spicy with the times.
“Fury, you son of a bitch.”
“Oh, you kiss your mother with that mouth.”
“Right next to you is one of those Captain America shields,” Dolcefino said.
“Yes,” Judge Rogers said.
He’s the judge in the 168th District Court in Fort Bend County, Texas, a Christian conservative Republican.
“I’ve done over 30 sexual assault cases since I took the bench,” Judge Rogers said.
And he’s made headlines for the tough sentences he’s handed out for sex criminals.
He gave this guy 57 years, double life sentences, for this sex criminal.
“I ran on a ‘tired of crime’ platform. I’m a tough judge,” Judge Rogers.
Those are the good headlines, but they aren’t the only ones for Judge Rogers.
“If you Google my name, it comes up—all the bad stuff comes up,” Judge Rogers said.
Like this one, about the judge who cursed in court, the public reprimand that Rogers got from the Texas Ethics Commission for his F-bomb and more.
“Our consulting firm is often asked for political advice, or opposition research on candidates, for corruption investigations, and you learn a lot of things you can almost bank on,” Wayne Dolcefino told the camera.
Take judges, they really don’t like cameras.
But Rogers says he doesn’t care if this helps or hurts his campaign. He just wants to set the record straight.
“My friends called me, and they’re like, ‘You can’t let this stand, you’ve got to fight this thing,’” Judge Rogers said.
And that’s what the F-you judge says he is doing now, trying to correct the record,
Cause those headlines on social media, the judge busted for cursing in court, they will live forever on the Internet.
“Honestly, I don’t want history to record me this way,” Judge Rogers said.
I’m glad to report Judge Rogers didn’t utter a single F-bomb during our interview.
“Well, I kind of went through hell for saying it the first time,” Judge Rogers said.
“But Rogers does have some choice words for the political hit job he claims he got from the Texas Judicial Conduct Commission,” Dolcefino told the camera.
“It might be easier to answer what they got right, and you’ve already said that everything else they got wrong,” Judge Rogers said.
“No, I will not be voting for him, that’s for sure,” Micheal Elliot said.
That’s not a surprise, criminal defense lawyer Michael Elliot was the recipient of the F-bomb that rattled the courthouse.
“We don’t need on-the-job training from a five-year-old throwing a temper tantrum,” Micheal Elliot said.
Along with his co-counsel, Annie Scott.
“He was screaming at the top of his lungs and using language that I’ve never heard in a courtroom,” Annie Scott said.
“This is not an issue about being tough; this is an issue about being incompetent,” Micheal Elliot said.
“So let’s take you through the F-bomb day,” Dolcefino told the camera.
The argument began when Rogers learned the defense lawyers wanted to put their clients in jail clothes during her trial. Amanda Vasquez was facing fraud and theft charges.
“We had a total right to present our client in jail clothes. We had a good legal reason to do it, and he didn’t even want to listen to it,” Micheal Elliot said.
“I wasn’t going to let them bring their client in front of a jury in jail clothes. I said, ‘Go to Walmart to buy civilian clothes for their client, and we will have a trial,’” Judge Rogers said.
Rogers says he was protecting Vasquez, believing any conviction would be overturned since a jury would assume guilt, and the lawyers would make more on an appeal.
“I think the lawyers wanted the appeal. I think they were going to throw their client under the bus in order to get the appeal,” Judge Rogers said.
The judge admits he felt himself getting mad as the lawyers refused to take no for an answer. It’s when he was walking out of the court that he dropped the F-bomb.
And that’s where the stories really diverge, ’cause Rogers says he only lost his cool for a few seconds.
“The entire engagement with these two lawyers was about ten minutes,” Judge Rogers said.
He admits he had personal struggles at the time, a cancer diagnosis.
“As a judge, I mean, you’re a human,” Micheal Carl asked.
“Right,” Judge Rogers said.
But Annie Scott’s complaint to the State Judicial Conduct Commission said the judge “towered over me from his bench and started to yell at me in a very high and aggressive voice.”
“I’ve never experienced anything at that level of unprofessionalism and disrespectful conduct toward another fellow lawyer,” Annie Scott said.
In a sworn affidavit, Scott even claimed Judge Rogers made her feel that day like three-fifths of a person, or as a dog, or something lower than a dog.
“I was just attacked for reasons that didn’t seem right. It seemed there was a bias in some way,” Annie Scott said.
“It’s ridiculous, it’s just inflammatory. I don’t know why anyone would even say that,” Judge Rogers said.
“You think she was playing the race card?” Dolcefino said.
“Oh, of course,” Judge Rogers said.
The Texas Ethics Commission publicly reprimanded Rogers in December of ’24 for denying Vasquez the right to wear jail clothes.
And, of course, the F-word. He was told to spend four hours of instruction on his demeanor. Rogers called it political.
“If they had looked at the courtroom video, which both parties submitted as their evidence, they would have seen that the allegations made by the complaining lawyers were not present on the video,” Judge Rogers said.
Rogers wanted a special court of review appointed by the Texas Supreme Court to hear his appeal.
And he used frame-by-frame video from that courthouse surveillance camera to defend himself.
You can see the judge getting animated, he gets up to leave, and you can read his lips, but it looks like he’s a good ten feet away from the lawyers.
The judge claimed the lawyers were smirking after it was over, but there is no audio on this courthouse recording, and the court reporter wasn’t on the record.
“It should be a law in Texas that all proceedings in a Texas courtroom are recorded both on audio and video, available to the public at their request for inspection. That is what open courts law should mean,” Dolcefino told the camera.
The lawyers thought that was intentional. When that special panel of judges finally issued its ruling after a trial in May of this year, they tore apart the Judicial Conduct Commission ruling:
“A criminal defendant does not have a constitutional right to appear at trial in whatever clothing she may desire.”
Rogers called it an exoneration.
“The bureaucrats at the Judicial Commission were wrong on the law and wrong on the Constitution,” Judge Rogers said.
The punishment was reduced to a private reprimand, even though the Judicial Conduct Commission ruling had already made plenty of very public headlines.
And it’s those headlines that continue to haunt the judge to this day. He is running for reelection and refuses to run away from what happened that morning two years ago.
“Two years later, do you regret saying it?” Dolcefino asked.
“I don’t, I think they deserved it,” Judge Rogers said.
That tough talk came in the judge’s chambers, with that Captain America shield in plain view.
“Just reminds me I’m protecting justice,” Judge Rogers said.
“And for gosh sakes, watch your language.”
“That’s not going away anytime soon.”
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