Judge of the 459th District Court and Austin Bar Treasurer Maya Guerra Gamble was named one of The National Judicial College (NJC)’s “60 Courageous Judges.”
The NJC’s Courageous Judges Awards “honor 60 judges, present and past, from courts in the United States and abroad, who have demonstrated courage in upholding the rule of law and providing justice for all.”1 Nominations were solicited from NJC’s alumni, faculty, staff, and others associated with the organization. An internal committee headed by College President Benes Z. Aldana made the final selections, relying almost exclusively on the examples of courage described by the nominators.
Many of the judges were recognized for honoring their vow to follow the law and Constitution in the face of contrary public opinion, political pressure, and threats to personal safety.
Judge Guerra Gamble’s nomination heralded her handling of Heslin v. Jones, one of the many lawsuits filed against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his network,
InfoWars.
Plaintiff Neil Heslin was the parent of a student killed during the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012. In the suit, Heslin sought damages from Jones and other defendants. In numerous instances after the shooting, Jones accused the parents, school staff, and students of being “crisis actors,” alleging no one had died at Sandy Hook, and calling it a “false flag” or fake event.
As a result of these accusations, Heslin was subjected to harassment and threats, both in person and online, Heslin’s attorneys said during the trial.
The trial started in July 2022 and lasted two weeks. In August 2022, Judge Guerra Gamble ruled against Jones, awarding more than $4 million in compensatory damages and more than $45 million in punitive damages.
Jones and his attorneys argued that Texas law capped the amounts that could be awarded in certain types of damages, and that the ruling should be cut by more than $40 million. In November 2022, Judge Guerra Gamble rejected this argument.
Speaking to the media during breaks in the trial and during his daily four-hour broadcast, Jones called the proceedings “a kangaroo court,” “a show trial,” and “a witch hunt.”
In addition to this highly publicized trial, Judge Guerra Gamble’s NJC nomination also cited her ruling against a law allowing private citizens in Texas to sue anyone who “aids or abets” abortion after six weeks.
On Sept. 3, 2021, Judge Guerra Gamble stopped a lawsuit from the advocacy group Texas Right to Life against workers at Planned Parenthood in Texas from proceeding. The ruling came just two days after Sept. 1, when Senate Bill 8 had gone into effect. This bill allows private citizens to sue women who get abortions and anyone who helps facilitate getting an abortion after six weeks’ gestation.
“The Court finds that S.B. 8 creates a probable, irreparable, and imminent injury in the interim for which plaintiffs and their physicians, staff and patients throughout Texas have no adequate remedy at law if plaintiffs, their physicians, and staff are subjected to private enforcement lawsuits against them under S.B. 8,” Gamble wrote in her decision.
Gamble also played an integral role in another abortion-related case in November 2023.
Kate Cox of Dallas applied for a temporary restraining order (TRO) against Senate Bill 8, arguing she had been advised her pregnancy was nonviable and posed a risk to her health. Her unborn child had been diagnosed with a condition called Trisomy 18, which is reportedly nearly always fatal before or very soon after birth. Cox was also advised by her OB-GYN that continuing to carry the child could impact her future fertility, as her previous two pregnancies had been delivered via C-section. A third C-section could result in rupturing her uterus
and/or needing a hysterectomy, she was told.
On Dec. 7, 2023, Judge Guerra Gamble issued the TRO, allowing Cox to obtain an abortion in Texas and exempting Cox and anyone involved in the abortion from the bill’s provisions.
The Texas Supreme Court subsequently blocked Judge Guerra Gamble’s order, holding that Cox did not qualify for an exception to Texas’s abortion ban. Cox had already traveled out of state to have the procedure done, however, according to her lawyers a few hours after the Texas Supreme Court issued its order.
Endnotes
1 https://www.judges.org/60th_anniversary/60-courageous-judges-honorees/.