Theresa Mullen Removed

Theresa A. Mullen, a Union County, New Jersey Superior Court judge, was permanently barred from ever serving as a judge in New Jersey by the state Supreme Court after the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct found she broke five rules of judicial conduct in a dispute with her daughters' Catholic school. St. Theresa School in Kenilworth had disbanded its girls' basketball team after the 2015-16 season and declined to let Mullen's then-seventh-grade daughter play on the boys' team. When the family sued, the school expelled both of Mullen's daughters in February 2017 under a policy barring enrollment for families with pending litigation against the school. Mullen brought her daughters to school anyway, refused to leave when asked, and challenged police officers to arrest and remove her — they did, citing her for defiant trespass. The Advisory Committee's February 2019 recommendation for removal found that over the roughly four years she fought the school, Mullen abused her judicial office, engaged in obstructive behavior, and was less than candid during a deposition in her husband's related civil suit against the school and the Archdiocese of Newark. Mullen's seven-year term ended in October 2021, and Governor Phil Murphy did not renominate her; the Supreme Court's permanent bar followed.