http://www.wacotrib.com/news/a...1e-68c69749bbfa.html

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) — Officials in South Texas have placed a municipal court judge on unpaid leave after it was discovered she's not a U.S. citizen.

Corpus Christi Mayor Pro-Tem Lucy Rubio told the Corpus Christi Caller-Times that Judge Young Min Burkett was placed on leave for 90 days with the intention that will be enough time for her to obtain citizenship .

Rubio says the city never asked during the qualification process to become a municipal judge whether Burkett was a citizen, and says Burkett never tried to deceive or misrepresent her background.

Rubio adds that city attorneys have reviewed the matter and determined that Burkett's rulings from the bench remain valid and lawful .

The Caller-Times reports that Burkett did not return phone calls seeking comment. Her nationality is not clear.

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Burkett has been licensed lawyer in Texas since 2007.

practice areas: Criminal, Government/Administrative

I must be hallucinating.

More all the time.

quote:

Originally posted by sdy:
http://www.wacotrib.com/news/a...1e-68c69749bbfa.html

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) — Officials in South Texas have placed a municipal court judge on unpaid leave after it was discovered she's not a U.S. citizen.

Corpus Christi Mayor Pro-Tem Lucy Rubio told the Corpus Christi Caller-Times that Judge Young Min Burkett was placed on leave for 90 days with the intention that will be enough time for her to obtain citizenship .

Rubio says the city never asked during the qualification process to become a municipal judge whether Burkett was a citizen, and says Burkett never tried to deceive or misrepresent her background.

Rubio adds that city attorneys have reviewed the matter and determined that Burkett's rulings from the bench remain valid and lawful .

The Caller-Times reports that Burkett did not return phone calls seeking comment. Her nationality is not clear.

***************

Burkett has been licensed lawyer in Texas since 2007.

practice areas: Criminal, Government/Administrative

Citizenship in 90 days?

Didn't deceive others or misrepresent herself?

Her rulings remain valid?

This is outrageous! Just a bunch of cover-their-ass bullshit from the people in charge who were revealed to be incompetent asses by Min Burkett.

That's the difference between TX and CA. In CA she would have been promoted to the Appellate Court to show the world how diverse and tolerant they are.

Crazy.

Simply crazy.

You just know there's a pile of attorneys getting ready to file motions to have rulings vacated. If you weren't eligible to be a judge, you weren't, and your "rulings" are worth as much as Joe schmoe's opinions.

One thing that wasn't covered. Is she an illegal alien??? The silence on this is suspicious. Otherwise, they would have said something along that lines of "she immigrated in 19 so and so and never bothered to apply for citizenship."

What's the basis for granting her citizenship? Because she's a judge and she needs the citizenship to continue as judge?

Given the name, I'm guessing she's married to a US Citizen

Or she was adopted by one, and didn't know that she wasn't a citizen

here is a more detailed report


https://www.usatoday.com/story...tizenship/329268001/

A question about citizenship wasn't on the application for appointment, Corpus Christi City Councilman Rudy Garza Jr. said Wednesday. The documents instead had a question about whether the applicant was eligible for legal employment in the state.

Young Min Burkett is a permanent resident and eligible for lawful employment, he added.

But U.S. citizenship is a requirement to be a municipal court judge, according to the city’s ordinance.

“The error was a city error and we don’t feel Judge Burkett was insincere or did anything in her application or interview that led to any dishonesty on her part,” Garza said.

Burkett did not return phone calls Wednesday requesting comment. Her husband, Nathan Burkett, sent a message to the Caller-Times late Wednesday.

In it, he said his wife has been a lawful permanent resident since 2007.

"The job posting specified only the ability to work in the U.S.," Nathan Burkett wrote. "She has never made a representation that she is a citizen."

Generally, the city includes on applications for appointees a question about whether the appointee is a qualified voter, Garza said.

However, that question was not included on the applications of some of the recent municipal court judge appointments. The discrepancy was noticed by city staff during the process of appointing a different judge, said Garza, who serves on the municipal court committee.

The staff went back to verify that current municipal court judges were qualified voters and found Burkett was not, he said.

Garza said he would like to have the opportunity to consider Burkett again for the bench if the issue can be addressed within 90 days.

Nathan Burkett, in the message to the Caller-Times, wrote that his wife's application for citizenship is pending.

"South Korea (her country of birth) doesn’t allow dual nationals like many other countries, so that’s why we hadn’t applied before now,” he wrote.

A municipal court judge appointment carries a two-year term and an annual salary of $97,935, according to city records.

Burkett was most recently appointed by the City Council to serve in that position in February, and previously, in 2015.

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so she has been in the position for a little over 2 years.

So "nulling" her decisions could be quite a job

A lot of the problem is the absence of the basic citizenship question on the application.

One would think a "judge" would know the position req'd U.S. citizenship

quote:

"South Korea (her country of birth) doesn’t allow dual nationals like many other countries, so that’s why we hadn’t applied before now,” he wrote.

Well duh. That's why you have to choose one. This is a deliberate deception. Deny citizenship.

So to break this down, a non-citizen was in a position to deprive citizens of their rights by sending them to prison?

and paid $100K a year to do it, she knew she wasn't a us citizen, and the 90 days to fix it?

How does that happen without some government strings being pulled...

Investigate the department who hired her. Lets see all their I-9 forms.
Who signed hers?

Put the pitchforks down boys.

The job ad and application didn't indicate that she needed to be a "Citizen." She is a legal permanent resident, authorized to work here in the US. Very few jobs require that you be a "citizen," and it's perfectly reasonable that she wouldn't know that some random municipal rule requires her to have citizenship.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
and paid $100K a year to do it, she knew she wasn't a us citizen, and the 90 days to fix it?

How does that happen without some government strings being pulled...

There is an old saw that goes something like, "Never rush to ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by ignorance, stupidity, or incompetence."

Is it possible that she didn't know she had to be a citizen? I'd say absolutely. Perhaps unlikely, but possible.

Is it possible that through incompetence the city managed to not check this qualification. Absolutely, they admitted as much.

My suspicion is that they know they screwed the pooch and this is their hack at damage control. Ninety days seems like it is a reasonable amount of time, but it is unlikely that this woman will have US citizenship in that timeframe. Okay, she chooses not to apply or does apply but it takes longer than 90 days. Sorry, missed the timeline, job is gone. That part of the situation goes away.

As to her decided cases, IANAL, but I have to believe there are a lot of lawyers out there capable of making the argument that if she wasn't qualified for the job her decisions are null and void. Whether the judge hearing said argument will accept it, consider the ramifications of wiping out over two years of decisions and the effect of all those cases coming back and circle the wagons and deny it, or deny it for some other legal reason I wouldn't begin to hazard a guess. I'd have been shocked if the city didn't try to head that off by saying her decisions are valid and will stand. They are probably wetting themselves hoping this is decided to be true.

quote:

Originally posted by RichardC:
Investigate the department who hired her. Lets see all their I-9 forms.
Who signed hers?

Being a lawful permanent resident satisfies the I-9 requirements to work here for most jobs. Whoever is signing off on the I-9 is just verifying that the documents checked are real.

I'm relieved to know the city attorneys have determined that her judgments should remain intact, NOT! I would be filing an appeal asap to the AC if I had lost a judgement as a result of her ruling.

Meh. She applied for the job as listed, meet all the criteria and didn't misrepresent her status. She's wholly in the clear on this.

There's no allegation that she didn't follow the law like a "citizen" judge, didn't have appropriate judicial temperment or wisdom or otherwise conduct herself like any other judge who takes the job seriously.

You can't roll back her decisions anymore than you could roll back 8 years of Obama if tomorrow you had proof positive he wasn't a US citizen.

There's nothing to see here.

Requirements for being a judge - citizenship.

She was not a citizen, ergo not a judge.

Try explaining why 1 + 1 does not equal 2.

Another example of our country running off the rails.

All her judgements are invalid IMO. She needs to see the inside of a prison.