The Texas commission that regulates judges’ conduct will pay nearly $950,000 in attorneys’ fees and expenses after losing one case and settling another over its failed bid to penalize judges who refuse to marry same-sex couples for religious reasons.
The State Commission on Judicial Conduct is on the hook for $630,000 in one of them, according to a June 8 motion the commission joined with Judge Dianne Hensley.
The fee resolution comes after a Texas district court ruled in February that the commission violated Hensley’s religious rights when it hit her with a public warning in 2019 after she stopped officiating weddings for same-sex couples.
Hensley’s lawyer, Jonathan Mitchell of Mitchell Law PLLC, said the commission also agreed to pay $315,800 in fees and expenses to settle a federal lawsuit from a second judge, Jack County Judge Brian Keith Umphress.
That settlement doesn’t appear on the docket in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas, which last showed the commission and Umphress were to mediate on May 29.
Jacqueline Habersham, executive director for the judicial conduct commission, declined to confirm the Umphress settlement Wednesday. Instead, she directed inquiries to commission’s lawyers in the cases. Neither of them — William Farrell from the Texas Attorney General’s office or Douglas Lang of Thompson Coburn LLP — responded to a request for comment.
The commission will pay Hensley $10,000 in damages for income she lost when she also stopped officiating opposite-sex weddings to avoid further trouble for not marrying same-sex couples, the motion said. That’s the maximum amount recoverable under the state’s religious freedom act, though Hensley estimated her actual loss at about $60,000. Umphress will get $4,200 in damages, Mitchell said.
Discussion of attorneys’ fees in Hensley’s case was all that remained after the trial court rejected the commission’s position that her motivation for not marrying same-sex couples could’ve been driven by her political beliefs rather than her Catholic faith. Judge Maria Cantú Hexsel of the state’s 53rd District Court opted to not let the jury decide that question, instead handing Hensley a final win more than five years after she sued the commission.
After resolving the Hensley and Umphress cases, the commission still faces one more. In January, it was sued by a judge pursuing damages on behalf of a class of justices of the peace in Texas who’ve opted out of officiating same-sex weddings for religious reasons. Last month, the commission participated in mediation with plaintiff Judge William P. Brandt, but didn’t reach a settlement, according to Mitchell, his lawyer.
The case is Hensley v. State Commission on Judicial Conduct, Tex. Dist. Ct., No. D-1-GN-20-003926, 6/8/26.