Reprimanded special judge attributes ‘hateful’ behavior to not being a ‘morning person’

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Although Special Judge Emily Mueller received a public reprimand from the Oklahoma Supreme Court for patterns of “rude conduct” and “disrespect toward certain attorneys,” the Lincoln and Pottawatomie County district judges who control Mueller’s appointment have declined to say whether she will be removed from the bench amid findings of “bias.”

Mueller, a former assistant district attorney appointed special judge for Judicial District 23 in 2019, was initially investigated by the Council on Judicial Complaints.

“The council determined the evidence established that Judge Mueller is, at times, undignified and discourteous to certain attorneys that appear before her, thereby creating the appearance of impropriety,” Chief Justice Dustin Rowe wrote in his Aug. 19 order. “The council noted that because Judge Mueller’s ‘rude conduct extends beyond the courtroom in her personal interactions with attorneys, she appears to have personal dislike for certain attorneys rather than simply professional disagreement.’ We find Judge Mueller’s repeated display of disrespect toward certain attorneys erodes the public’s confidence in the independence, integrity and impartiality of the judiciary in violation of Rule 1.2 of the Code of Judicial Conduct.”

That rule prescribes “promoting confidence in the judiciary.” Rowe and his fellow justices also said Mueller violated Rule 2.8 and Rule 2.9, which govern “decorum, demeanor and communication with jurors” and “ex parte communications.” In describing the allegations against Mueller, Rowe quoted from the Council on Judicial Complaints’ initial report, which is required to be kept confidential under Supreme Court rules.

“Judge Mueller has displayed a pattern of poor demeanor toward certain attorneys and courthouse staff and bias against certain attorneys. These allegations were supported by affidavits and statements from other attorneys and courthouse staff,” the report stated. “In addition to allegations of poor demeanor, Judge Mueller was accused of engaging in ex parte discussions wherein she discussed two issues relating to the case heard that day.”

Rowe conducted an interview with Mueller and “presented his recommendation of discipline to the Supreme Court.”

“In response to the report regarding her demeanor, Judge Mueller admitted that her attitude has fallen short in interactions with attorneys and even her co-workers, but ultimately attributed her poor interactions to not being a ‘morning person,'” Rowe wrote. “In response to engaging in ex parte conversations, she did not consider the conversations as ex parte because no decision was being made that day but recognized that she could have handled the hearing differently.”

Mueller’s behavior had been on record in court filings for months. In a Lincoln County divorce case, attorney James Levine wrote in a March recusal motion that he had appeared before Mueller previously and was a potential witness in the adjudication of a bar complaint filed against another attorney by Mueller. (Records allege that Mueller exhibited intense animus for Shelley Levisay, a previously suspended attorney — and true crime novelist — who holds Pottawatomie County’s indigent defense contract.)

Levine wrote in March that Mueller was “overtly curt” and “oppressive in demeanor.”

“[Judge Mueller] generally failed to demonstrate an appropriate level of requisite judicial temperament in all her dealings with undersigned counsel,” Levine wrote. “To be blunt, the behavior exhibited by this court in that case to undersigned counsel was overtly hateful.”

Somehow, Levine obtained and filed an affidavit of Elonda Smiley, a bailiff for Pottawatomie County from 2018 to January 2024. In the affidavit — apparently created for a complaint against Mueller — Smiley outlined a series of “condescending” and bizarre interactions. She described Mueller as “generally acting as a hateful person to most people that appeared in front of her.”

“As the bailiff, so many people came upstairs to my office after having court with her requesting how to complain about her. I eventually kept a sticky note with the Oklahoma Bar Association and Council on Judicial Complaints information written on it to give to complaining members,” Smiley wrote. “Particularly, people of color complained about her treatment of them. From my observation, their complaints were justified. As a person of color myself, she launched two investigations on me in an attempt to have me fired and fired for allegedly lying on my time sheet. Sen. Shane Jett wanted to visit with me because of the number of people complaining about Mueller to him, but I was afraid to do so because I worked for her and feared retaliation.”

Jett (R-Shawnee) said he began attending court hearings with constituents owing to the volume of complaints he had received about Mueller. At one hearing, Jett said Mueller entered Associate District Judge Tracy McDaniel’s courtroom and spoke with her. Soon after, McDaniel decided to clear the courtroom.

“I kept getting credible reports from constituents where the decisions that she would do on child placement seemed to maximize billable hours for her colleagues and to maximize the amount of trauma to the family,” Jett said. “So I spoke with Judge (John) Canavan, who is one of the judges that gets to appoint her, and I said, ‘Your Honor, I was removed from [a] courtroom, and they berated the attorneys for politicizing [the] courtroom.’ Now let me very clear, that was not a political move. (…) It was personal for me, because she was abusing my constituents.”

Under Article 7, Section 8 of the Oklahoma Constitution, Mueller serves as a special judge “at the pleasure” of District 23’s elected district judges, John Canavan and Sarah Bridge.

Asked about Mueller’s reprimand from the Supreme Court, neither Canavan nor Bridge would say whether they intend to retain her as a special judge for Lincoln and Pottawatomie counties, but each did consider it an “ongoing” personnel matter.

“Judges are not free to discuss ongoing personnel issues with the public or the media,” Canavan told NonDoc. “Should anything change, I will contact you.”

Bridge answered similarly.

“As it relates to this matter and your question, I do not comment on ongoing personnel issues,” Bridge said.

Mueller did not respond to a message seeking comment about her reprimand.

Jett, who said even a judicial watchdog group in Canada has sent him material on Mueller, hopes Canavan and Bridge take the Supreme Court’s order seriously.

“This is a problem that I’ve made them aware of, and it’s high time that they take corrective action and protect the families they were elected to protect,” Jett said. “I hope that the families that have been abused by this judge will get some actual justice and courtesy in the courtroom, and that this discourteous bench behavior not repeat itself going forward.

“The bedside manner was woefully inappropriate.”

Judicial complaint totals rising in Oklahoma

After the Council on Judicial Complaints‘ meeting Aug. 28, director Taylor Henderson confirmed that her agency could not release its report on Mueller.

However, Henderson told council members that she is presenting at an upcoming conference about proper “demeanor and behavior in the courtroom,” and she agreed to describe her view of best practices to NonDoc.

“Generally, a judge is supposed to be — and show that they are — impartial, that they are a neutral arbiter, that they are not advocating for any one side, that they are not causing any more harm in the courtroom than is already being brought to them, right? So, patient, kind and not engaging in any forms of harassment, so that can be related to any discriminatory classes that you typically think about. But also for judges, this gets into discrimination based on, like, a mother vs. a father. So we see a lot of people upset [and] saying, ‘Well, a judge always wants kids to be with the mom.’ So always being fair in the application of the law.”

In response to an Open Records Act request, Henderson released the agency’s Fiscal Year 2025-2029 strategic plan and budget materials presented to the Oklahoma Legislature in October 2024. The reports included a graph displaying Oklahoma’s increase in judicial complaints filed over the past decade: from 159 in 2015 to 317 last year.

“The number of complaints received by the agency has doubled since Jan. 1, 2018, and is increasing year over year,” the strategic plan states.

However, according to Henderson, judicial complaints typically are related to a judge’s decision, not their professional conduct.

“Nationwide, the majority of complaints that are received about judges relate strictly to their decisions, which is not within a disciplinary commission’s province to investigate unless there’s something more related to it,” Henerson said. “So the vast majority — I’m going to say 85 to 90 percent of the complaints received — are just someone doesn’t like a decision the judge made. Behind that, it would be some allegation of bias. It could be related to demeanor, something that the judge did that makes someone think that the judge is biased for one thing or another.”

(Clarification: This article was updated at 3:40 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 1, to clarify that Sen. Shane Jett and others were removed from Associate District Judge Tracy McDaniel’s courtroom.)

Review the Council on Judicial Complaints’ strategic plan

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