Natalia Cornelio Reprimanded

Harris County District Judge Natalia Cornelio was reprimanded by the Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct over her handling of an appeal by Ronald Haskell, on death row for murdering six members of his ex-wife's family in 2014. In July 2024, Cornelio issued a bench warrant ordering Haskell returned to Harris County for what it described as a midnight court hearing — a hearing that never actually took place. The warrant kept Haskell out of death row custody and in the county jail for three weeks, during which he received an MRI at a private clinic near the Texas Medical Center.

Photographs submitted by the Harris County District Attorney’s Office last year show Haskell in a waiting room with public citizens who were unaware of their proximity to the convicted killer. After learning about the bench warrant, prosecutors sought to obtain information about Haskell's transfer, but Cornelio then granted a motion to quash a subpoena for the information on September 14, 2024, without giving prosecutors an opportunity for a hearing.

The Commission found Cornelio performed her judicial duties with bias, faulting her both for the misleading bench warrant and for ruling on a related subpoena without giving prosecutors any opportunity to respond. Prosecutors accused her of acting as an advocate for the defense rather than a neutral judge, and she was removed from the case in January 2025. Cornelio contested the reprimand and testified in her own defense, but a special review panel upheld it.