DALLAS — The state judicial ethics commission should not have reprimanded a Dallas judge who told a man convicted of brutally killing a child that he deserved to die locked in a closet, the Texas Supreme Court decided.
Chief Justice Robert Burns III, of Dallas’ Fifth Court of Appeals, was a criminal district court judge when he sentenced Charles Wayne Phifer to life in prison without parole, a punishment Burns said wasn’t severe enough.
Texas’ Commission on Judicial Conduct publicly admonished Burns last year for comments he made to Phifer as he delivered the sentence. Burns appealed the admonishment to the state’s highest civil court.
