Harris County Ousted Judge Ramona Franklin Moves Closer to Criminal Court Return

Ramona Franklin’s primary victory on March 5, 2026 puts the judge who left the 338th District Court in December 2024 back on a path toward the Harris County criminal courthouse, where she could face Republican Dan Simons of the 496th District Court in the November general election. Franklin filed to run again in December, and her return would come two years after voters rejected her re-election bid.

Franklin’s Democratic primary field included Harris County prosecutor Michael Abner, who captured 39% of the vote. The campaign record available to date shows Franklin filed for office in December, but the filing paperwork in the public record excerpt does not specify which judicial district she listed as the target seat; reporting identifies Dan Simons of the 496th as the Republican incumbent she would meet in November.

Franklin’s tenure on the 338th drew formal grievance action from local defense lawyers. The Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association and the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association filed a formal complaint with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct; the complaint documents bear metadata with filing dates of 8/24/20 and 8/25/20 and frame the submission under Texas Government Code, Section 33.021 et seq. The complaint alleges that Franklin “abused her discretion acting in the manner which she did in Joseph Gomez’s case, revoking bonds and raising bail amounts of defendants without good and sufficient cause or findings to support doing so,” and it contends she continued to act “in the same manner despite the court of appeals’ ruling and binding precedent in Gomez’s case.”

The complaint invokes vertical stare decisis and quotes the principle that a district judge “must follow and be bound by a ruling of law made by a Court of Appeals until such ruling is overruled or set aside” by the Court of Criminal Appeals. The HCCLA lists contact information in the filing: P.O. Box 924523, Houston, TX 77292, phone 713-227-2404. TCDLA contact details in the packet include 6808 Hill Meadow Drive, Austin, TX 78736, phone 512-478-2514.

County data and court records cited in coverage of Franklin’s second term, which coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, show the 338th “racked up more pending cases and kept more people jailed than any other court in Harris County,” and the records state Franklin went 15 months without presiding over a trial. The complaint document also references an appellate decision in the Gomez matter and states “Gomez was decided on Friday, August 7,” without listing the year in the excerpt.

Campaign activity around Franklin’s comeback included what reporting described as “suspicious phone calls” made on her behalf; criminal defense attorney Joe Vinas received one call claiming Franklin was poised to become a federal judge. University of Houston politics lecturer Nancy Sims has noted the vulnerability of down-ballot judicial contests to low-information voting, a dynamic echoed by the crowded bench races across Harris County this primary season that produced results such as Ebony Williams’ 66% win in Civil Court at Law No. 2.

Franklin’s biography underscores the contrasts in the contest: first elected in 2016 and re-elected in 2018, she was counted among “The 19,” a group of 19 African American women elected to Harris County benches in 2018. She has said of her career path, “Well, I really wanted to practice sports law. ... But when I got to law school, I realized I really had more of a love for criminal law. I've always wanted to help people. So, that began the segue to criminal law,” and her judicial approach has been described under the motto “Blindfold Justice.”

Key facts remain to be confirmed in the public record: the exact seat Franklin formally filed for in December, certified vote totals and Franklin’s primary percentage, the full county caseload numbers behind the “most pending cases” claim, and the disposition of the HCCLA/TCDLA complaint at the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. If Franklin and Simons meet on the November ballot, Harris County voters will weigh those disciplinary allegations, the county caseload data, and Franklin’s 2024 ouster in deciding whether she returns to the criminal courthouse.