Lawsuit: JP ordered public spankings

A Los Fresnos family is asking a state district court to stop a Cameron County justice of the peace from ordering spankings in his courtroom and to remove the judge from office.

They're also asking for a temporary restraining order against him to prevent the judge from permitting or authorizing corporal punishment of all minors in his courtroom.

Mary Vasquez and her husband, Daniel Zurita, filed a lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of their minor daughter against Cameron County Pct. 6 Justice of the Peace Gustavo "Gus" Garza. News of the restraining order request spread Thursday.

Brownsville lawyer Mark Sossi represents the family.

The family's petition alleges that on April 9, Garza told the then-14-year-old girl and her stepfather that the teen would be found guilty of a criminal offense and fined $500 for not attending school unless Zurita spanked her in the courtroom.

The petition alleges Garza directed Zurita to repeatedly strike his stepdaughter on the buttocks with a large, heavy wooden paddle fashioned from a thick piece of lumber in open court and in the presence of other adults and juveniles.

"The word ‘club' could be fairly used as a substitute for the word ‘paddle' here as it appears to be something which may have been cut from a (two-by-four) piece of lumber," Sossi wrote in the petition.

"The paddles provided by the judge are of such heft and weight that an individual striking an animal with one might be reasonably reported for cruelty to an animal," Sossi added.

Garza declined to comment on the matter Wednesday and could not be reached Thursday.

"I don't know anything about it," he said, noting he has not seen the lawsuit. He also declined to say whether he's had people spanked in his courtroom.

Zurita stated in an affidavit that, "I did not feel that I had a choice but carry out the orders of the judge. When I was finished, Judge Garza told me that I had not struck (my stepdaughter) hard enough ..."

Zurita stated in an affidavit attached to the petition that Garza ordered the public spankings of other minors in his courtroom.

In her own affidavit, the girl's mother stated that the public paddling caused her daughter to "suffer not only physical pain, but also caused her to be frightened, degraded, shamed and embarrassed."

"It is unconscionable that a Texas judge would order a parent, much less a step parent ... to strike a child with such a thing in a Texas courtroom," Sossi wrote in a footnote on the petition.

There are 10 other justice of the peace courts in Cameron County, and a polling of seven JP offices shows that corporal punishment is not a part of their procedures.

"I send them to the Gladys Porter Zoo to do community service," Cameron County Pct. 2 Place 1 JP Linda Salazar said of truants whose families can't afford the fines. "That's as far as I go. I try to counsel them also."

The youths also are instructed to provide the court with a report of what they learned during the community service.

Starting more than a decade ago, corpal punishment was largely prohibited in public schools.

A hearing on Garza's case is scheduled for 10 a.m. today before 404th District Judge Abel Limas.