Fifth Circuit Won’t Discipline Judge Who Banned Female Attorney

A federal appeals court won’t take disciplinary action against a judge who banned a female assistant US attorney from appearing in his courtroom.

Chief Judge Priscilla Richman of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said in an order that she believes US District Judge Lynn Hughes’ conduct “was improper,” including disparaging comments he made about female attorneys in another case. However, Richman said that action “is no longer necessary,” as Hughes, who sat in the Southern District of Texas, has since taken senior inactive status and isn’t hearing any cases.

The order is dated June 12 but was only posted on the Fifth Circuit’s website in recent days. The order doesn’t name Hughes, but matches descriptions of the incidents outlined in court filings.

Hughes couldn’t be immediately reached for comment.

Hughes, appointed by Ronald Reagan, faced criticism from the Fifth Circuit several times during his time on the bench, including for the two incidents described in the complaint.

“It was lot simpler when you guys wore dark suits, white shirts and navy ties. . . . We didn’t let girls do it in the old days,” Hughes said to a female federal prosecutor with the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas, after she said she made a mistake in one criminal case. A Fifth Circuit panel in 2018 said that “such comments are demeaning, inappropriate, and beneath the dignity of a federal judge.”

In a 2022 opinion, Fifth Circuit Judge James Ho said Hughes’ order banning the female attorney from his courtroom was against the same federal prosecutor, in an apparent punishment. Hughes declined to say why he was asking the prosecutor to leave his courtroom, according to the government’s brief in the case.

“It is apparent from the transcript of the proceedings that the district judge believes he has been falsely accused of discriminating against the AUSA based on her sex,” Ho wrote at the time. “But be that as it may, it’s hard to imagine a less persuasive way for a judge to rebut the charge that he discriminated against a female attorney than by expelling her from his courtroom—not just in one case, but in every case that she may bring for the rest of her career.”