Within less than a week, Houston solo Randall Kallinen filed two separate suits against judges on behalf of clients.  On Nov. 13, Kallinen filed Burns v. Mayes, et al. in federal court in Houston, alleging that 410th District Judge K. Michael Mayes’ policy of jailing probationers who provide “dilute” urine samples -- meaning the urine has a low creatinine level -- violated Paul A. Burns’ rights to due process and equal protection under the law. “He was in jail 44 days for an accusation of dilute urine,” Kallinen says of Burns. The suit also names Montgomery County and John Does as defendants. Mayes refers reporters to Ray Johnson, assistant county attorney for Montgomery County.  Johnson, who represents the county but does not represent Mayes, declines comment.On Nov. 7, Kallinen filed suit against Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller on behalf of the widow of executed murderer Michael Richard. Marsha Richard alleges in Richard v. Keller, et al. that Keller ordered the CCA clerk’s office not to accept paperwork concerning Michael Richard after 5 p.m. on Sept. 25, the day that the state executed him.  Keller declines comment on that suit, which Kallinen originally filed in a Houston federal court and subsequently moved to federal court in Austin. A decade ago, Kallinen sued the 22 criminal district judges in Harris County over an administrative order that prohibited the district clerk and sheriff from releasing addresses and phone numbers of unrepresented defendants in pending cases.  Kallinen, who represented criminal defense attorney Lee Scham, won that case. In 1997, U.S. District Judge Kenneth Hoyt of Houston granted Scham’s motion for summary judgment in Scham v. District Courts Trying Criminal Cases, et al., holding that the judges did not have authority to issue the order.  But Kallinen says suits against judges are difficult.  “What you’re doing is saying, hey, judicial branch, limit your own powers, which is not an easy thing to do,” Kallinen says. 
-- Mary Alice Robbins