District Clerk not held in contempt, judge says he was ’incapable’ of carrying out duty
Hays County District Clerk Avrey Anderson was not held in contempt by Judge Tanner Neidhardt of the 483d Hays County District Court who said instead that he was “incapable,” on Tuesday. The proceedings also alleged that Anderson had fallen asleep during training that covered the software used to send out jury summons. This does not have a direct impact on a separate petition that has been filed to remove Anderson from office.
Anderson was elected to a four-year term in 2022 as a 19-yearold who recently graduated from Dripping Springs High SchooL The Hays County website states that his “office is responsible for providing records of the District Courts’ proceedings, implementing District Court decisions, and administratively supporting the respective courts and judges.” These duties include summoning jurors to allow the courts to hold trials.
Anderson was brought before the court in January after there were issues of not having enough jurors to hold trials. After giving an explanation in District Court on Jan. 9 as to why that occurred, Anderson was ordered to appear in court again on Feb. 6 to show cause as to why he should not be held in contempt for initially misleading the court, according to the Show Cause Order. Judge Neidhardt came to the conclusion that Anderson had not intentionally misled the court, but rather was not capable of carrying out his elected duties.
“I’ve only asked you for a Show Cause Hearing,” Neidhardt said in court on Tuesday. “Once again, your words could save you. You did not intentionally mislead the court. You did not know what you were doing. I will not hold you in contempt for this. What I do understand is that you are incapable of carrying out the [duties of the] office.”
Court documents show that there were criminal trials originally set for defendants Jayden Dougherty and Steve Sanchez for Jan. 3 and Jan. 16, but Anderson “failed to ensure an adequate number of jurors for the 483rd District Court.” Anderson was given the chance to explain the issue to Neidhardt on Jan. 9, and on that day he said the blame should not be placed on him.
“Failure to [summon jurors for the 483rd court] was nothing to do with any dereliction of duty or failure on the part of the clerk’s office. It was a technological problem that no one realized until the time that the jury was being called,” Anderson said on Jan. 9, according to the show cause order filed on Feb. 1.
According to the initial Show Cause Order issued by Neidhardt and filed on Jan. 10, “Mr. Anderson alleges that a vendor with whom he contractedto mail summons failed to send jury summons. He further alleges that an IT technician in Hays County may be responsible for a firewall that led to the ‘error.’ For this reason, Mr. Anderson argues that he bears no responsibility and acknowledged no responsibility.”
According to the Jan. 9 order issued by Neidhardt, Anderson denied that the electronic portal between the District Clerk’s office and the summons vendor “would be a way for us to know that there are people who have received notice of summons.” Neidhardt’s Show Cause Order from Feb. 1 states that, subsequent to the hearing, the statement was proven to be false. It further states that Anderson was summoned on Feb. 6 as an opportunity to “explain himself.”
Anderson was present on Tuesday with his council Joanna Salinas, as was council for the accused vendor, Tyler Technologies, the Hays County vendor Anderson alleged had failed to send the jury summons.
“I would warn you that when you make the arguments that there is no way they could have known [whether the summons had been sent out], you now, like me, have further information about that,” Neidhardt said.
Anderson argued that he was unaware at that time that there was a way to check if the summons were received. “We did not believe that we had to be actively looking for it [whether the summons had been received as indicated by the online portal] until, I believe, it was the 3rd of Jan.,” Anderson said. “We have been trained [by Tyler Technologies on how to use the online portal], but it was a long time ago. I don’t remember exactly what month. We went over things, but I don’t remember specifically what the training was like.”
Travis Campbell, the attorney for Tyler Technologies, showed Neidhardt screenshots and background information from the training, which was projected for the viewing public and showed that the status of the jurors within the system would go from selected to summoned — an indication that the summons had gone out.
“I know that at one point, [Anderson] appeared to be asleep [during the training],” Campbell said.
The court then called the Hays County Assistant District Clerk Maximiliano Hernandez to speak to the training and what occurred. Hernandez said that he does recall the screenshots given by Tyler Technologies as being part of the training he attended.
“I organized the training for the entire county,” Hernandez said. “There was an instance where I had to wake [Anderson] up.”
Salinas argued for Anderson that at the time of the missed summons, the clerk’s office was not checking the location on the portal that says summoned or selected.
“They are now,” Salinas said. “They’ve changed their process now. Now they are looking at that to see and make sure that those things are happening. They were not using that at the time.”
Neidhardt asked Anderson directly why he had not been checking that location on the portal.
“We didn’t think we had to, because we didn’t experience this issue until the 3rd, I believe, of January,” Anderson said. “We had no belief that Tyler was not going to send them out. We don’t know if it’s Tyler’s fault or if it’s really specifically the internet thing like they were saying. But we don’t know what the specific issue was, but for whatever reason they didn’t get sent out. That’s not something that we expected to happen.”
Tyler Technologies previously provided a statement to the Daily Record that, “The software is and has been functioning as intended.”
Neidhardt said he was trying to ascertain whether Anderson “intentionally mislead this court to believe that you could not have known that summons did not go out. Or did you not know that the summons didn’t go out because you didn’t look at the system because you didn’t remember the training, or because you were incompetent to carry out the training or because you were asleep during the training.”
Anderson responded that he did not remember the training, but that he was not aware because “we believed that they were summoned as usual.”
Neidhardt summarized what he believed Anderson was trying to say.
“What I think that I’m hearing is not that you intentionally mislead me. Although, I question that in the sense that this is real clear that you can go on and see if they have been selected or summoned, and you didn’t do that,” Neidhardt said. “To get out of trouble, you told me that there is no way you could know. That’s not true. But the reason that you didn’t know it wasn’t true is that you’re not competent enough to carry out that duty. That’s what I think the situation is.'