It’s never pleasant to have a grudge held against you, but it can be particularly disturbing when the grudge-holder is in a position to exercise authority over you and lacks the integrity to do so impartially.
It might be a teacher whose antagonism presages undeserved failure, a superior whose antipathy precludes merited advancement, or a local bureaucrat whose disfavor foreshadows delay or denial of your permissible project.
People who cannot put personal feelings aside and hold grudges should not occupy positions of authority.
Galveston County Court-at-Law Judge Christopher Dupuy is one such person.
Make that soon-to-be-former County Court-at-Law Judge Christopher Dupuy. Dupuy was recently arrested and indicted and has since been suspended without pay pending a June 7 hearing to consider his permanent removal from office.
Dupuy faces eight criminal counts of abusing his power, including obstruction or retaliation, oppression and abuse of official capacity. He is also the defendant in a Galveston County 10th District Court suit seeking to oust him from the judgeship.
Dupuy never should have been on the bench in the first place. He’s unfit to be a judge. Elected by voters unaware of his many shortcomings, he now needs to go.
The judge Dupuy ran against in 2010, the man he unseated, was the presiding judge in Dupuy’s own divorce case when Dupuy announced his candidacy – thereby putting the judge in a position of having to recuse himself. (He also filed suit against the attorney representing his wife in the divorce proceedings.)
Suspended Judge Dupuy has a long record as a scofflaw: loans defaulted on, two bankruptcies, a six-month probated suspension of his law license, a malpractice suit filed by a former client, etc.
Dupuy shouldn’t even be a lawyer, much less a judge, but his career as an attorney may not last much longer either. His days as a free man may be numbered, too. Perhaps he’ll learn a new trade if he ends up in prison.