The Oklahoma Supreme Court’s chief justice has reprimanded Oklahoma County District Court Judge Amy Palumbo after Sheriff Tommie Johnson III filed a judicial complaint last April related to a bizarre saga about courthouse noise levels and a threat to arrest the sheriff for contempt.
Along the way, the unusual scenario also involved Oklahoma’s attorney general and Oklahoma County’s district attorney, and it remains unclear what discipline Palumbo received from the court’s highest officer. While the situation began last spring and played out amid the backdrop of Johnson’s reelection campaign last fall, it has spilled into the public eye now.
In response to a request under the Open Records Act, Johnson provided NonDoc with a packet of documents that included statements from deputies who were chastised by Palumbo, a letter from Supreme Court Chief Justice Dustin Rowe and screenshots of messages between himself and Palumbo.
The dispute began when Palumbo contacted Johnson on April 17, 2024, while he said he was attending an event with his children. Johnson said he did not take the call but texted Palumbo back.
“I’m in a meeting, how can I help you?” Johnson asked Palumbo via text.
Palumbo replied, “I need you in my courtroom today at 1:30 p.m.”
Johnson asked what was going on in Palumbo’s courtroom at that time.
“I am going to be addressing contempt and you’re gonna need to clear your schedule. I’ll see you at 1:30 p.m.,” Palumbo texted.
Johnson said he quickly contacted Attorney General Gentner Drummond for assistance. According to Johnson, after Drummond called Palumbo about the matter, she texted him again.
“I’m meeting with your attorney at 1:30 p.m.,” Palumbo wrote. “Not requiring your personal appearance at this time. If and when I issue a summons, you will know.”
The incident left Johnson angry and confused, and it motivated him to file a formal judicial complaint against Palumbo one week later. Had he shown up to the courtroom April 17, Johnson said he believes he would have been arrested, paraded in front of TV cameras and booked into the Oklahoma County Jail.
“If I had showed up, or if I would’ve cooperated, the end result would’ve been me being carried out in handcuffs, because that’s what she believed she could do,” Johnson said in an interview with NonDoc.
Palumbo did not respond to phone and text messages requesting comment on the dispute with Johnson or the reprimand she received from the Supreme Court, which was communicated to Johnson in a Jan. 24 letter from Rowe.
“You are notified pursuant to [Title 5, Section 4(f) of] Rules Governing Complaints on Judicial Conduct, that on this date I issued a private reprimand with instructions to Judge Amy Palumbo,” Rowe wrote. “The Council on Judicial Complaints has been made aware that this matter has been addressed and resolved.”
Diana O’Neal, the chief administrative officer of the courts, did not respond to voicemails inquiring as to the details of the reprimand prior to the publication of this story.
The Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office is responsible for security screening at the entrance of the Oklahoma County office complex and also transports detainees to and from the jail for court appearances. Deputies also roam the facility for security purposes.
Johnson said he’d never had any personal or professional disputes with Palumbo before she contacted him in April 2024. Before that exchange, the last message shown in Johnson’s screenshots of their communications involved Palumbo wishing Johnson a merry Christmas in 2023.
Johnson said he believes Palumbo’s actions were intended to disrupt his 2024 reelection campaign by creating a public spectacle.
“I don’t know why she did this,” Johnson said. “The timing is certainly suspicious.”
Palumbo was first elected to the bench in 2018 with 65 percent of the vote. She was reelected in 2022 with 55 percent. In 2015, she finished third in the GOP primary for Oklahoma House District 85. Before her election to the bench, she worked as a public defender and later was an attorney in an OKC law firm.
Johnson first won election to his current job in 2020, and he again defeated Democrat Wayland Cubit in 2024 with 58 percent support. Previously, Johnson had served as an officer with the University of Oklahoma Police Department and, later, the Norman Police Department.
Deputies castigated by Palumbo
According to letters provided by Johnson, Palumbo admonished several deputies over noise levels outside her eighth-floor courtroom. Those deputies later made written statements about the two incidents as part of Johnson’s investigation into the matter.
Palumbo is currently assigned to a criminal docket, and on April 17, 2024, she was presiding over a blind plea in a manslaughter case. During the presentation of victim impact statements, Deputy Michael Burton apparently escorted an in-custody defendant into Palumbo’s courtroom for an appearance in a later case on the docket. Deputy Timothy Pearson wrote that, after Burton arrived, he was called to another floor to escort another in-custody defendant to another courtroom. Before Pearson exited Palumbo’s courtroom, the deputies present were admonished by Palumbo, they wrote.
“Judge Palumbo started yelling that she had requested on several occasions and Sheriff Johnson had ordered that a deputy shall be in the hallway of the eighth floor on pre-trial weeks, but that for several weeks, it has not happened,” Pearson wrote. “Judge Palumbo then yelled to ‘get someone out there and quiet down that hallway now.’”
In his statement, Pearson wrote that he previously observed Palumbo telling attorneys involved in other cases to exit her courtroom and speak to their clients in the hallway instead of in her courtroom. He saw those attorneys do as she had asked. Pearson wrote that, in his view, the attorneys were not talking loudly, but he told them to be quiet, as court was in session.
In his separate statement, Burton corroborated Pearson’s version of events.
“While waiting for my defendant’s case to be called, I observed and heard Judge Palumbo stop a plea hearing already underway and began shouting at deputies present in her courtroom. Judge Palumbo’s shouting indicated she had repeatedly asked for deputies to be present on the eighth floor of the courthouse,” Burton wrote. “Judge Palumbo continues making statements expressing her deficiencies with courthouse security and at one point instructing deputies to get out in the hallway and quiet down the loud talking. Deputy Pearson exited the courtroom and could be heard instructing unknown parties in the lobby of the eighth floor to lower their voices.”
The documents released by Johnson include another statement from someone only identified as “Deputy McGinnis.” Records indicate that Johnson’s office employs a Dominique McGinnis as a sheriff’s deputy. McGinnis wrote that he was the deputy targeted by Palumbo. As someone had opened the door to the courtroom, McGinnis wrote, chatter from the hallway could be heard.
“Judge Palumbo then interrupted the unknown female while she was giving her victim impact statement and proceeded to scream at me while the courtroom was full of people,” McGinnis wrote. “She stated, ‘This is the third week in a row that I requested a deputy on this floor.’”
McGinnis said in his statement that the experience left him feeling “humiliated and disrespected.”
Palumbo also said she would be in contact with Johnson later that day over the dispute involving deputies and the perceived noise levels outside her courtroom.
Johnson said his internal investigation found that the amount of noise in the hallway outside of Palumbo’s courtroom was typical for a day in the life of the facility.
“There was no unusual noise in the hallway or noise that someone would deem egregious,” Johnson told NonDoc. “Just regular court noise that you would hear from time to time in court. It’s just a busy place. You’ve got people coming in to see the judge to get their rulings. They’re outside talking with their counsel, back and forth. So it’s just normal noise of people having to compete with other people talking. But it’s not loud. It’s not egregious.”
‘I’m not trying to run and holler and scream’
On April 18, one day after receiving the texts from Palumbo, Johnson said he met with Oklahoma County District Attorney Vicki Behenna to discuss how he should approach the dispute. In the end, he said the conversation was not productive.
“I’m not trying to run and holler and scream. I want to do things by the book, the way I would ask my citizens to do, the way I would ask my deputies to do. Hey, there are rules and there are steps in place to protect you when people have wronged you. And so I asked Vicki Behenna,” Johnson said. “Clearly, [Palumbo] was wrong. She completely abused her power and authority. If me or another officer would have done that, our mugshot would have been up on the news at the end of the night. People would have screamed abuse. And what we’d have been looking at is charges filed on us for all of that stuff, as well as our job being taken. Is there any recourse for what she just did? And Vicki Behenna goes, ‘Nope, a judge can do whatever they want.’”
The response surprised Johnson.
“I said, ‘Ms. Behenna, you have to be kidding me,’” Johnson said. “There is no recourse for the action of a judge who wanted to throw me in jail so they can do whatever they want to do? I have a hard time believing that. Well, they can just do whatever they want to do.”
Johnson later asked Behenna to recuse herself from any potential consideration of charges against him or his deputies. He said Behenna declined.
“So you won’t represent me, but you won’t recuse yourself so I can pursue other representation?” Johnson said.
A spokeswoman for Behenna did not respond to a message seeking comment about the situation.
The day he received the text messages from Palumbo, Johnson said he reached out to Attorney General Gentner Drummond via phone for an opinion.
“I said, ‘Sir, I have Judge Palumbo who is trying to throw me in jail for contempt and telling me to be in her courtroom at 1:30 p.m.,’” Johnson said of his conversation with Drummond. “He said, ‘Do you have any business in her courtroom?’ I said, ‘No, sir.’ He said, ‘You don’t have any business dealings?’ I said, ‘No sir. I literally have nothing.’ He goes, ‘Well, OK, let me call her.’”
According to what he was told by Drummond, Johnson said the call between the attorney general and Palumbo was tense. A spokesman for Drummond said the attorney general does not comment on private conversations, but Johnson referenced the discussion in the judicial complaint he filed against Palumbo.
“I was not present when any of the described events occurred in the courtroom nor was I even aware that these events had occurred. I was not and had never been directed or ordered by Judge Palumbo to do anything,” Johnson wrote in his complaint. “I was not aware of how I was in contempt of court, so I then contacted Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond and asked him if I could be held in contempt of court for what had occurred. He told me that I could not. He then told me that he would call Judge Palumbo. General Drummond then called me back and said that Judge Palumbo told him that “he (Tommy Johnson) is in contempt.”
Johnson consulted with friends who are attorneys, and he said he did hire one at his own expense. Johnson said he was advised to file a complaint with the Oklahoma Council on Judicial Complaints, which he did April 24.
‘At home, it was tough’
Johnson said he never intended to discuss the dispute publicly, only doing so when he started receiving inquiries from local media. He said the entire saga left him angry, and even months later, it’s still unpleasant to think about.
“When I was going through it, you talk about being mad as a hornet,” Johnson said.
Asked if he believes Palumbo’s actions were politically motivated, Johnson implied people can draw their own conclusions.
“I mean, you could certainly look at the timing of it all,” he said. “And it is happening right before, you know, as I’m running for office for reelection.”
Johnson, who has four young children, said the dispute with Palumbo eventually permeated his home life. In discussions with his wife, they pondered what to do if he were arrested, including how to bond him out of jail and whom to contact.
“So at home, it was tough,” Johnson said, adding it was particularly difficult for his children. “‘Oh my gosh, Daddy’s getting arrested?’ Because we always talk about accountability. We always talk about, ‘Hey, if you do something wrong, there’s a reaction to every action.’ And they can’t understand that. And they can’t understand, ‘Well, Dad you didn’t do anything wrong. Why would they put you in jail?’ Because people are using this system and they’re abusing their power and authority.”
Johnson said he believes that, had he not reached out to Behenna and Drummond, and instead showed up in Palumbo’s courtroom that day, he would have been arrested. He said Palumbo had requested the presence of other county officials in the courtroom to witness the possible arrest.
He also remains frustrated with the lack of resolution. While he knows Palumbo was disciplined to some extent, he said he doesn’t know what form that punishment took, if any.
“They wouldn’t tell me what the punishment was,” Johnson said. “Frankly, they didn’t apprise me of anything. I’m just stuck here with the complaint that I filed. And you validated that complaint, saying that you punished her for her actions. One, I don’t feel it was a harsh enough punishment. I mean, what if you’d have thrown me in jail? What if I had gone down there (to court) and I wasn’t aware of my legal situation? What if I didn’t consult the attorney general, and I came down there and I was hauled off in handcuffs? What does that do for me?”
Read Chief Justice Dustin Rowe’s letter to Johnson
Read the Oklahoma County sheriff deputies’ April 2024 letters
