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Michelle Slaughter
Michelle Slaughter (Republican Party) was a judge for Place 8 of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. She assumed office on January 1, 2019. She left office on December 31, 2024.
Slaughter (Republican Party) ran for re-election for the Place 8 judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. She lost in the Republican primary on March 5, 2024.
Slaughter became a member of the court through a partisan election. She was elected to the court in 2018 to succeed Elsa Alcala (R).[1] To read more about judicial selection in Texas, click here.
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country. As part of this study, we assigned each justice a Confidence Score describing our confidence in the degree of partisanship exhibited by the justices' past partisan behavior, before they joined the court.[2] Slaughter received a confidence score of Mild Republican.[3] Click here to read more about this study.
Biography
Slaughter was born in Fort Worth, Texas.[4] She received a B.A. from the University of Houston.[5] In 2004, she graduated with a J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center.[6] After law school, Slaughter worked as a private attorney. She founded her own law firm in 2010.[5]
In 2013, Slaughter was elected to the 405th State District Court in Galveston County, where she served until her election to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 2018.[7]
Elections
2024
See also: Texas Supreme Court elections, 2024
General election
General election for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 8
Lee Finley defeated Chika Anyiam in the general election for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 8 on November 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Lee Finley (R)  | 58.9 | 6,385,238 |
 | Chika Anyiam (D) | 41.1 | 4,461,229 | |
| Total votes: 10,846,467 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Stephan Kinsella (L)
Democratic primary election
Democratic primary for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 8
Chika Anyiam advanced from the Democratic primary for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 8 on March 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Chika Anyiam | 100.0 | 804,891 |
| Total votes: 804,891 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Republican primary election
Republican primary for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 8
Lee Finley defeated incumbent Michelle Slaughter in the Republican primary for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 8 on March 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Lee Finley | 53.9 | 988,824 |
 | Michelle Slaughter | 46.1 | 846,549 | |
| Total votes: 1,835,373 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Libertarian convention
Libertarian convention for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 8
Stephan Kinsella advanced from the Libertarian convention for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 8 on April 14, 2024.
Candidate | ||
| ✔ |  | Stephan Kinsella (L) |
| ||||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Campaign finance
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Slaughter in this election.
2018
- See also: Texas Supreme Court elections, 2018
General election
General election for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 8
Michelle Slaughter defeated Mark Ash in the general election for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 8 on November 6, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Michelle Slaughter (R) | 74.7 | 4,760,576 |
 | Mark Ash (L) | 25.3 | 1,614,119 | |
| Total votes: 6,374,695 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Republican primary election
Republican primary for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 8
Michelle Slaughter defeated Jay Brandon and Dib Waldrip in the Republican primary for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 8 on March 6, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Michelle Slaughter | 52.8 | 666,763 |
| Jay Brandon | 30.7 | 387,751 | ||
 | Dib Waldrip | 16.4 | 207,209 | |
| Total votes: 1,261,723 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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2016
Texas held general elections for local judicial offices on November 8, 2016. A primary election took place on March 1, 2016. A primary runoff election was held on May 24, 2016, for any seat where the top vote recipient did not receive a majority of the primary vote.[8] Incumbent Michelle Slaughter defeated Ben Roeder and Philip Washington in the Texas 405th District Court Republican primary.[9]
| Texas 405th District Court, Republican Primary, 2016 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
 Michelle Slaughter Incumbent |
73.36% | 22,851 |
| Ben Roeder | 15.95% | 4,967 |
| Philip Washington | 10.69% | 3,330 |
| Total Votes | 31,148 | |
| Source: Galveston County, Texas, "Cumulative Report-Unofficial," March 1, 2016 | ||
Campaign themes
2024
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Michelle Slaughter did not complete Ballotpedia's 2024 Candidate Connection survey.
2016
Slaughter's 2016 campaign website said:[10]
| “ |
Judge Michelle Slaughter believes in transparency of government at all levels. She also believes in being a true public servant by being available and accessible to the public. Further, she believes in educating the public about the judicial branch of government and on matters occurring in the 405th District Court. Unlike others who say one thing but do another, Judge Slaughter does not just say it – she does it. She is a woman of conviction and a woman of action. When Judge Slaughter came under attack for providing transparency and education to the public through social media regarding matters in the 405th District Court, she stood by her convictions, she stood by the First Amendment, and she stood by every citizen’s right to transparency and information from every branch of government. Judge Slaughter spent tens of thousands of dollars of her own money to fight for what is right and SHE WON that fight.[11] |
” |
Campaign finance summary
Ballotpedia currently provides campaign finance data for all federal- and state-level candidates from 2020 and later. We are continuously working to expand our data to include prior elections. That information will be published here as we acquire it. If you would like to help us provide this data, please consider donating to Ballotpedia.
Analysis
Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship (2020)
Last updated: June 15, 2020
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country as of June 15, 2020.
The study presented Confidence Scores that represented our confidence in each justice's degree of partisan affiliation. This was not a measure of where a justice fell on an ideological spectrum, but rather a measure of how much confidence we had that a justice was or had been affiliated with a political party. The scores were based on seven factors, including but not limited to party registration.[12]
The five resulting categories of Confidence Scores were:
- Strong Democrat
- Mild Democrat
- Indeterminate[13]
- Mild Republican
- Strong Republican
This justice's Confidence Score, as well as the factors contributing to that score, is presented below. The information below was current as of June 2020.
Michelle
Slaughter
Texas
- Partisan Confidence Score:
Mild Republican - Judicial Selection Method:
Elected - Key Factors:
- Was a registered Republican
- Received donations from Republican-affiliated individuals or organizations
- Endorsed by Republican-affiliated individuals or organizations
Partisan Profile
Details:
Slaughter ran as a Republican for her seat on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. She received $1,500 from the Galveston Republican Women PAC and $2,500 from the Conservative Republicans of Texas. She was endorsed by Dr. Robin Armstrong (National Republican Executive Committeeman), Dr. Steven Hotze (President, Conservative Republicans of Texas), and Tanya Robertson (State Republican Executive Committeewoman). At the time of her election, Texas was a Republican trifecta.
Noteworthy events
Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct admonishment over Facebook posts
In April 2015, Slaughter was admonished by the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct for posting Facebook statuses about criminal cases that she was presiding over.[14] The commission ordered her to "enroll in a four-hour class on the 'proper and ethical use of social media by judges.'"[15] The ruling said, "Judicial independence, impartiality, and integrity must be seen in order for the public to have confidence in the legal system. Despite her contention that the information she provided was public information, Judge Slaughter cast reasonable doubt upon her own impartiality and violated her own admonition to jurors by turning to social media to publicly discuss cases pending in her court, giving rise to a legitimate concern that she would not be fair or impartial in the Wieseckel case or in other high-profile cases."[15]
Slaughter denied that the posts displayed partiality and said the Facebook page was "the most efficient way to fulfill [her] campaign promise and [her] own goals of educating the public about our courts."[14] Slaughter appealed the admonishment, and a three-judge Special Court of Review ruled on September 30, 2015, that she was not guilty of violating judicial standards.[16]
Court of Criminal Appeals judicial selection in Texas
- See also: Judicial selection in Texas
The nine judges of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals are selected in statewide partisan elections. The elected justices and judges serve six-year terms, after which they must run for re-election if they wish to remain on the court.[17]
Qualifications
To serve on any of the appellate courts, a judge must be:
- a U.S. citizen;
- a resident of Texas;
- licensed to practice law in the state;
- between the ages of 35 and 75;*[18][19] and
- a practicing lawyer and/or judge for at least 10 years.[17]
Presiding judge
The presiding judge of the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals is selected by voters at large. He or she serves in that capacity for a full six-year term.[17]
Vacancies
In the event of a midterm vacancy, the governor appoints a replacement who must be confirmed by the Texas Senate. The appointee serves until the next general election, in which he or she may compete to serve for the remainder of the unexpired term.[17]
The map below highlights how vacancies are filled in state supreme courts across the country.
See also
2024 Elections
External links
|
Candidate Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 8 |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Texas Tribune, "Eight years on Texas' highest criminal court turned Elsa Alcala into a death penalty skeptic. How will the court change without her?" January 16, 2019
- ↑ We calculated confidence scores by collecting several data points such as party registration, donations, and previous political campaigns.
- ↑ The five possible confidence scores were: Strong Democrat, Mild Democrat, Indeterminate, Mild Republican, and Strong Republican.
- ↑ San Marcos Daily Record, "Michelle Slaughter,"September 12, 2018
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 County of Galveston, "Judge Michelle M. Slaughter," archived August 10, 2016
- ↑ University of Houston Law Center, "UH Law Center alumna Slaughter '04 elected to Texas appeals court " November 29, 2018
- ↑ Texas Judicial Branch: Court of Criminal Appeals, "Judge Michelle Slaughter," accessed August 1, 2021
- ↑ Texas Secretary of State, "Important 2016 Election Dates," accessed December 18, 2015
- ↑ Texas Secretary of State, "Official candidate list," accessed December 18, 2015
- ↑ Michelle Slaughter 2016 campaign website, "Justice, Freedom of Speech, and Transparency in All Levels of Government Prevails!" archived January 18, 2016
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ The seven factors were party registration, donations made to partisan candidates, donations made to political parties, donations received from political parties or bodies with clear political affiliation, participation in political campaigns, the partisanship of the body responsible for appointing the justice, and state trifecta status when the justice joined the court.
- ↑ An Indeterminate score indicates that there is either not enough information about the justice’s partisan affiliations or that our research found conflicting partisan affiliations.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Document Cloud, "Slaughter admonishment," accessed July 28, 2015
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Ars technica, "Texas admonishes judge for posting Facebook updates about her trials," April 27, 2015
- ↑ Houston Chronicle, "Galveston judge cleared of wrongdoing in Facebook posts," September 30, 2015
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedTXgeneral - ↑ Texas State Historical Association, "Judiciary," accessed September 12, 2014
- ↑ While no judge older than 74 may run for office, sitting judges who turn 75 are permitted to remain on the court until their terms expire.
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by - |
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 8 2019-2024 |
Succeeded by Lee Finley (R) |
| Preceded by - |
Texas 405th District Court 2013-2018 |
Succeeded by - |
| ||||||||||
