Like most judges, Amber Givens moved much of her court’s business online as the pall of COVID-19 hung over Dallas in the summer of 2021. On August 3, what initially seemed like a routine Zoom meeting with lawyers turned into the impetus for a prolonged public and legal drama with the 43-year-old district judge at its heart.
Givens, who has presided over the 282nd District Court in Dallas since 2015, had trouble logging in to her Zoom account that morning, a familiar woe for all who transitioned to virtual work during the pandemic. It didn’t seem like too much of a problem—she had a relatively light docket that day. One meeting involved a man named Floyd Aaron, who’d been accused of violating the conditions of the deferred adjudication of his 2015 burglary charge.
Before the meeting, Givens asked her court coordinator, Arceola Warfield—known by many regulars at the courthouse as “Arce”—to log into the judge’s account and announce that the judge would participate via speakerphone, according to affidavits obtained by the Texas Observer.
