At a May 11 hearing, attorneys representing 44th District Judge Carlos Cortez of Dallas County withdrew his motion to seal his deposition and two witness statements in his now-nonsuited defamation case against a lawyer. They also obtained a $2,500 appeal bond on visiting Judge Richard Davis’ earlier ruling that the documents constitute court records. Texas Lawyer and The Dallas Morning News have intervened in the case in an attempt to gain access to those records. Cortez had filed his motion to seal in Judge Carlos Cortez v. Coyt Randal “Randy” Johnston under Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 76a. Johnston, a partner in Dallas' Johnston Tobey, had filed the deposition and two women’s witness statements under seal in the case. Michael Northrup, a shareholder in Dallas’ Cowles & Thompson who represents Cortez in the case, argued to Davis that the media would not be prejudiced by Cortez’s appeal to Dallas’ 5th Court of Appeals. “Here we submit the media is in no worse position if they are given the information at the end of the appeal as if they were given it today,” Northrup argued during last week’s hearing. Joseph Larsen, special counsel in the Houston office of Sedgwick who represents Texas Lawyer and The Dallas Morning News, argued that the witness statements are important for the public to see. Larsen argued that the media is prejudiced by not having access to the documents while Cortez mounts his appeal. “Every day the public doesn’t know about it is a day we don’t know about his administration of public office,” Larsen argued. Cortez did not return a telephone call seeking comment, and Johnston declines comment. Cortez’s lead attorney, Andrew Korn, a partner in Dallas’ Korn, Bowdich & Diaz, declines comment. Cortez alleged in his original petition filed last year that Johnston filed a complaint against Cortez with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct based on rumors that Johnston and three other Dallas judges, including 101st District Court Judge Marty Lowy, allegedly created to attract a political opponent against Cortez. Cortez later amended his petition twice, eliminating many of the details surrounding his defamation allegations, including the names of the three judges. On May 10, Lowy intervened in the case to contest Cortez's attempt to seal the records at issue, according to Lowy's petition of intervention, and his attorney Ike Vanden Eykel appeared at the May 11 hearing. Vanden Eykel, a partner in Dallas’ KoonsFuller, says his client wants the records to be open to the public so that “the public can see the truth.” Lowy declines comment.
-- John Council
Comments