Ex-London ISD teacher who had improper student relationship calls for recusal of judge

An attorney for a former London ISD teacher who admitted to having an improper relationship with a student has motioned for the recusal of 214th District Judge Inna Klein from the case on the grounds that Klein's "impartiality might reasonably be questioned."

Senior Judge Rogelio Valdez is set to oversee a court hearing on March 31 to decide whether or not Klein should recuse herself from Amber Prince's case.

In response to the motion from Prince's attorney, filed March 2, Klein declined to recuse herself, court records show. Instead, Klein referred the motion to Judge Missy Medary, the presiding judge of the Fifth Administrative Judicial Region, who appointed Valdez to consider the motion.

Klein did not respond to the Caller-Times' request for comment.

Prince, 41, pleaded guilty to 10 counts of improper relationship between educator and student — a second-degree felony — on Feb. 22, after agreeing to a plea deal with prosecutors with the Nueces County District Attorney's Office, according to court records. Prince was arrested in March 2021.

Klein ordered Prince to serve five years of deferred probation, a form of community supervision that permits a defendant to accept responsibility for a crime without an actual conviction being placed on the record.

At the request of prosecutors, Klein also sentenced Prince to serve 60 days in the Nueces County Jail — two weeks each year starting Feb. 24 this year — as a condition of community supervision.

Prince, then represented by Jared Perkins and Christopher Gale, disagreed with this condition. According to court records, Prince "sought no jail time as a condition of community supervision."

Prince's current defense attorneys, Terry Shamsie and Stephen Byrne (hired by Prince after Klein's Feb. 22 judgment), now argue that Klein failed to render impartial judgment when considering the conditions of Prince's community supervision.

In a motion filed on March 2, Shamsie called for Klein's recusal from Prince's case and argued that Klein did not fully disclose conflicts with the district attorney’s office, nor that she was reported to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct by the district attorney's office in November 2021 for allegedly watching jury deliberations in Derek Parra's murder trial.

Citing confidentiality, state commission Executive Director Jacqueline Habersham declined to confirm to the Caller-Times whether the office was investigating Klein.

According to Shamsie, Prince "was not informed of the risk she was undertaking by allowing the Court to hear her case, and set the conditions of community supervision."

He argued his client was not aware that Klein might have "tempered her rulings in a manner that would please the District Attorney's office" to advance her own interests and "attempt to influence potential testimony" presented by the district attorney's office to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct.

Shamsie argued that Klein leveraged "such information to her advantage at the expense" of Prince, whom he described as "very vulnerable" and suffering from mental illness.

"It is impossible and incalculable for the defense to know how many cases, with whom, concerning what issues, and to what degree the Court has decided that the separation of powers, and the integrity of the Judiciary was not important," Shamsie wrote. "Judge Klein disregarded her judicial duties, and deprived the defendant of her right to an independent and impartial judiciary."

Shamsie did not respond to multiple requests for additional comment.

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Kailey E. Hunt covers breaking news and public safety in South Texas. John Oliva covers education and community news in South Texas. Consider supporting local journalism with a subscription to the Caller-Times.

This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Former London ISD teacher motions to remove judge from case