Former Loving County Justice of the Peace Amber King has been publicly reprimanded for arresting four jurors who believed they were county residents, without due process.
The State Commission on Judicial Conduct (SCJC), responsible for investigating allegations of this kind, issued the public reprimand on June 3.
Loving County, deep in rural West Texas, has a population of 57. Mentone, its county seat, has a population of only 15 people.
Background
In May 2022, Matthew Jones, William Carr, Ysidro Renteria, and Becky Hill appeared in court for a jury summons. Judge King proceeded to qualify the jury panel.
During the process, King told the jury pool that they were able to leave if they were not a qualified juror, warning that they could be submitted to the District Attorney for aggravated perjury and be held in contempt if they failed to do so. She then asked each individual juror if they wished to leave.
After swearing in the juror pool, Judge King stated, “Okay. So it’s come to the Court’s attention [that] there are several jurors who are not residents of this county. And you were given the opportunity to leave. Since you have not left you will be held in contempt of court, and you will be remanded to the Winkler County Jail for obstruction of the proper administration of justice as well as disrespect to the Court.”
King had the four jurors arrested and transported to the Winkler County Detention Center—without notice or a hearing before the arrests.
She then held the jurors in contempt of court, stating they had “refused to comply with this court’s order” while failing to specify which order was allegedly violated. A second order stated that they would be held until 5:00 p.m.
King lost her re-election bid later that year to Angela Medlin, though she would join a lawsuit contesting the election results. Ten ballots would ultimately be thrown out for not satisfying residency requirements, and a new election was held in late 2025—with the incumbents all being re-elected.
Three of the jurors arrested by King filed a writ of mandamus, which was ultimately granted by Judge Medlin, vacating the contempt orders. Medlin wrote that King “clearly abused her discretion and failed to comply with due process.”
Once released, jurors Jones, Carr, and Renteria filed a federal lawsuit against King and other county officials—alleging that King orchestrated their arrests in calculated retaliation for the jurors’ political opposition, in violation of their constitutional rights.
They contended that King’s ultimate goal was to remove them from Loving County’s voter rolls by declaring them nonresidents. In such a small county, every vote is consequential.
In 2025, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the suit, finding that King had judicial immunity.
During King’s deposition in the election suit, it was discovered that she had the four jurors arrested based upon her personal definition of residency rather than the legal definition. She was also found to have deleted information from her county computer after being asked to preserve it.
Then-Sheriff Chris Busse admitted in his deposition that the four individuals were King’s political adversaries. Former District Clerk Holly Jones stated she knew Judge King was going to challenge their residency prior to their arrest.
King denied this claim, maintaining that the arrests and contempt charges were not premeditated nor for any purpose other than protecting “the integrity of the Court” from jurors who “perjure[d] themselves.”
She also denied to the SCJC that any of her actions were improper regarding the deletion of documents and emails from her county computer. She expressed that she believed everything was going to be deleted due to her term ending, and she “forwarded important emails to [herself] to preserve them.”
The Public Reprimand
Nonetheless, the SCJC issued its public reprimand against King on June 3.
“Based on the record before it and the factual findings recited above, the Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct has determined that the Honorable Amber King, Justice of the Peace, in Mentone, Loving County, Texas, should be publicly reprimanded,” reads the order.
The order claims King acted with bias and prejudice by ordering the jurors’ arrest based solely on her personal belief regarding their residency.
“Judge King’s failures in the foregoing respects constituted willful and persistent conduct that is clearly inconsistent with the proper performance of her judicial duties and cast public discredit upon the judiciary and the administration of justice,” the SCJC concluded.
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