Audrey Moorehead

Audrey Moorehead, judge of Dallas County Criminal Court at Law No. 3 — a court that handles DWI cases, including a specialty DWI docket — was arrested for driving while intoxicated on December 8, 2020, after losing control of her SUV and hitting a light pole, totaling the vehicle. Her blood alcohol concentration, tested about two hours after the crash, measured 0.105, above the legal limit of 0.08. She refused to complete a field sobriety test at the scene, telling the officer he was administering it improperly.

On June 9, 2022, the State Commission on Judicial Conduct publicly admonished Moorehead over the incident — in a break from its own standard practice, the Commission issued that public sanction before her criminal case was even resolved, and notified the media before notifying Moorehead or her attorney; she learned of her own admonishment from a reporter. Weeks later, on June 29, 2022, Moorehead entered a no-contest plea to the misdemeanor DWI charge and was placed on twelve months of deferred adjudication.

Moorehead requested review of the admonishment, and a three-judge Special Court of Review — appellate justices drawn from three different Texas appellate districts — held a trial de novo in September 2022. There, Moorehead testified that she had one drink at a restaurant while watching a football game, and that the crash was actually caused by an unfamiliar new vehicle's automatic steering-correction and acceleration/braking systems malfunctioning as she swerved to avoid another car. She also testified she was never asked to take a breathalyzer or perform any other field sobriety test beyond the one she stopped mid-test.

The Commission's own charging document required it to prove she had caused the accident and refused to cooperate with the investigation, in addition to having consumed alcohol before driving; the Commission called no witnesses at the review hearing and presented no evidence to counter Moorehead's testimony on either point. On November 17, 2022, the review panel dismissed the admonishment, finding the Commission had failed to prove those elements by a preponderance of the evidence — while separately noting that the Commission itself had stated on the record that its sanction was never based on a finding that Moorehead had actually driven while intoxicated under the law.