This morning, we told you about Ada Brown, a U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Texas and her absolutely disrespectful and racist behavior toward attorney Ezra Young in the context of her facing possible disciplinary action, and questions surrounding her mental health. Really, it is a wild ride. If you haven’t read it, click on the link.

Well, it turns out that the same judge was due to appear today in what can be best described as an investigatory hearing and she was a no-show:

From the article:

A federal judge in Texas failed to appear on Friday before a special committee for an under-oath interview to address allegations that she had abandoned her post and likely suffers from a mental condition interfering with her ability to perform the responsibilities of her office.

A three-judge committee ‌had earlier this month directed US District Judge Ada Brown of Dallas to appear before it to address concerns raised by two separate judicial misconduct complaints that are now pending before the 5th Circuit Judicial Council.

But after a half-hour of waiting, Chief US Circuit Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod began to bring Friday’s proceedings to a close without hearing from Brown herself after the judge failed to appear as ordered.

‘Judge Brown has not ⁠arrived,’ Elrod said, according to a transcript, opens new tab. ‘No one has appeared on behalf of Judge Brown. We have not heard from Judge Brown that she is running late, and we have been given no other reason to wait.’

Brown had previously told the investigative committee she would not participate in the proceedings, claiming it would compromise an unspecified parallel investigation. Elrod said that despite being urged to reconsider, Brown had continued to not engage with the panel or submit further information.

The committee had previously warned that her failure to participate could result in the committee expanding the scope of its investigation and filing a report on its findings and recommendations without the benefit of Brown’s response.

Really, as a general rule, it is a good idea to show up so you can be heard in any kind of hearing. Do we have to explain why? We doubt it. 

Of course, it could turn out later that just by bad luck she really had a solid reason to miss the hearing, such as a serious auto accident. But as you are about to see, the judge has (allegedly) been all over the place in terms of her participation in this process.

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This comes after this author learned even more about Judge Brown’s alleged erratic behavior. Earlier today we wrote that 

[W]e will note that on the face of the text [of the hearing transcript], the judge doesn’t seem any crazier than your average campus leftist. Her behavior was naturally way out of bounds, and, crucially, we weren’t there, so maybe there was something in way the judge spoke, her affect or something intangible like that, that supports the mental health concerns. But again, the text alone doesn’t support that.

We stand by that analysis of the hearing transcript within its limits (we weren't there, and we don't know the judge personally or professionally), but we have learned a lot more since then and, if these new allegations are true, we are much more likely to believe she is suffering from some sort of mental health problem. We get that additional information from Ms. Thomsen, again:

That links to basically a huge pile of documents. Naturally, you can read them for yourself, but we wanted to share some highlights.

First, ordinarily these proceedings are carried out under secrecy. So why is this public? Well, that is explained by an official ‘Statement of the Judicial Council of the Fifth Circuit’ dated October 19, 2026. It starts off by saying that

Recent public reporting has revealed the existence of two complaints against U.S. District Judge Ada E. Brown of the Northern District of Texas under the Judicial Conduct and Disability Act of 1980, 28 U.S.C. §§ 351–364, and the Rules for Judicial-Conduct and Judicial-Disability Proceedings (‘JC&D Rules’).

In the early morning of Saturday, October 17, 2026, Judge Ada Brown widely disseminated confidential materials related to these proceedings, including to members of the press, and waived confidentiality in writing.

So, basically, she started talking about this publicly, and waived her right to confidentiality. Therefore, they were releasing a bunch of documents that were previously sealed.

After that, we have an order by the same judicial council where basically they took Judge Brown’s docket away from her. According to them, they ‘ordered Judge Brown to meet with the Committee members at the federal courthouse in Dallas, Texas, on September 21, 2026, as part of its investigation of the complaint.’ Then shortly after, they made a second order:

On September 11, 2026, the Committee further ordered Judge Brown to answer in writing by September 18, 2026, and later extended to September 19, 2026, several questions the Committee determined were necessary to its investigation of the complaint, including questions related to her docket management, intent to resign, staff turnover, refusal to return to work, and numerous unsupported accusations that court staff and other judges have illicitly altered her docket and that attorneys, other judges, and court staff have engaged in racist behavior toward her.

As for the September 21 meeting:

Judge Brown failed to attend the meeting on September 21, 2026, stating she was ‘advised by counsel to only give testimony under oath due to the parallel investigation into these matters.’

A footnote says

To date, no attorney has appeared on behalf of Judge Brown in the JC&D complaint proceeding or in response to the Council’s September 21, 2026, notice of its intent to consider issuing an order pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 332(d)

As for the written answers to questions that ended up being due on September 19:

In response to the questions in the Committee’s September 11, 2026, order, Judge Brown provided two purported examples of her ‘judicial peers moving cases to and from [her] docket without [her] knowledge.’ She refused, however, to respond to the questions regarding other concerns related to her docket and staff turnover, citing the possibility of compromising unspecified, separate ‘investigation[s]’ and her ‘inability to force’ Chief District Judge Reed C. O’Connor to produce evidence related to her docket. Judge Brown ignored the Committee’s remaining questions that did not involve concerns specifically related to her docket and staff turnover. In addition, Judge Brown ignored the Committee’s request to specify the ‘parallel investigations’ to which she referred.

So, there is allegedly some kind of parallel investigation that she can’t seem to tell anyone about. Furthermore, she is claiming that other judges are moving cases in and out of her docket without telling her, which is as an allegation is extremely hard to believe.

Then the committee finds that they need to take her docket away from her, explaining the decision with the following claims:

The conduct underlying the Committee’s determination included the following:

1. Failing and/or refusing to communicate with her chambers staff or otherwise manage her docket.

2. Engaging in demonstrably egregious and hostile treatment of others by making aberrant and inappropriate comments, including racial insults, toward [redacted name—almost certainly Ezra Young in our prior post] in a hearing conducted on [redacted date].

3. Recusing from over 40 cases since June 1, 2026, at various stages of litigation, including after a bench trial and after conclusion of cases, either without explanation or for unusual reasons, e.g., concerns ‘about the constitutionality and ethics of these matters.

4. Making unsubstantiated claims that orders are being entered in her cases or are being altered by others without her permission and/or with criminal intent, failing to provide evidence of such claims upon request, and requesting to have those claims investigated by the Texas Rangers.

5. Repeatedly making claims without any apparent justification or evidence that judges, attorneys, and court staff are discriminating and retaliating against her because of her race and/or gender.

6. Engaging in demonstrably egregious and hostile treatment of others by making racial insults to judges and court staff.

7. Sending copious and bizarre emails to court staff and judges, including emails in the middle of the night, and copying and/or blind copying others who have no reason to be copied on such emails.

8. Announcing her intent to resign and rescinding the same at least twice since June 30, 2026.

9. Refusing to return to work to ‘protest’ the alleged failure of the Clerk’s Office to enter a letter of recusal on the docket of an MDL case that is no longer assigned to her.

10. Refusing to meet with Chief Judge Elrod and Chief Judge O’Connor to discuss these issues and her docket.

They explain that they had ordered her to submit to psychological evaluation in 30 days, starting on September 21, and to tell them whether she intended to comply with that order within 7 days. She refused to comply with that seven-day order. There is no word on whether she has submitted herself to the shrink within the 30 days as required.

In addition to all that:

Independently of its concerns that Judge Brown is unable to discharge the duties of office due to mental condition, the Committee has expressed concerns about the significant backlog of matters to be addressed in her cases. During the course of its investigation, the Committee discovered that Judge Brown abandoned her post as a federal judge. Judge Brown then ignored the Committee’s inquiry regarding the date on which she plans to return. In addition, the Committee learned that for several years Judge Brown habitually and unduly delayed ruling on motions and routinely closed cases with pending motions so that such cases did not appear on her Civil Justice Reform Act list. This dereliction has led to a significant backlog of undecided motions (78 based on a recent report), matters awaiting hearings and trials, and other matters that require immediate judicial action.

They say that they told her that they were thinking of taking away her docket and gave her a chance to explain why they shouldn’t. She didn’t respond to that, either.

Now, we will pause to say that these are allegations and they have not been tested by the adversarial process that is the American ideal for fact-finding. We have no independent way of knowing if it is the truth. This author believes from his experience that the judges probably had a good evidentiary basis for everything they said, but reasonable people might be more skeptical.

The next few orders basically are dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s, with only a little more detail given about her on again, off again decision to resign. The last order in the packet also sets up the October 30, 2026 investigative hearing that she has somehow missed. If you actually read about the details of how it was supposed to take place, if she chose to show up, you would see why we called it an investigative hearing — it has significant elements of a mini-trial.

Finally, we get the perspective of a man who says he knows her professionally as a lawyer. Of course, we didn’t verify he is really a lawyer and he really practiced in front of her, but we will note we can’t see how he possibly could have gained anything from lying on this topic. In any case, this is what he said in a conversation on Twitter/X, with a cameo from a TownHall mainstay:

The cut off text:

Even gave me a hug in the hallway prior to one as she was entering her Chambers for the morning.  I knew her when she was a State Judge and even before that.

From my experience, I have never witnessed anything that would have led me to believe that she would ever exhibit these types of behavioral patterns, to utter these words in Court.  It is totally out of the context of my entire history of dealing with her at any level.  

That being said, there is no excuse for what has now been widely reported, none.  It is tragic to see her upward trajectory in our legal community come crashing down like this.

Without knowing her, we are increasingly convinced that it is a sad situation, rather than an outrageous one. We will pray that if she needs psychological help, she gets it.

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