HOUSTON – A Harris County District Court Judge was arrested for driving while intoxicated, according to court documents.
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Judge Kelli Johnson, who currently serves as the presiding judge of the 178th Criminal District Court, was arrested Tuesday at 1:55 a.m. and charged with driving while intoxicated, a misdemeanor, by the Houston Police Department. She has since made bond.
According to officers, Judge Johnson was making a left turn in the 11600 block of Hempstead Road when she was stopped.
Officers said the judge was driving below the speed limit, and when officers reached her vehicle, she had her hands up. It’s not clear why the officers stopped the judge initially.
Judge Johnson has presided over many cases in her judicial capacity, from state jail felonies to capital murder cases. The most notable were the AJ Armstrong trials. She presided over all three of Armstrong’s cases. The first two attempts by the prosecution were declared mistrials in 2019 and 2022 because the juries couldn’t reach a verdict either time.
During the third trial, AJ was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.
DEEP DIVE: The AJ Armstrong trials
But the most recent high-profile trial she oversaw is the one Judge Johnson says haunts her.
When she sentenced child killer Brian Coulter to prison for the rest of his life in April, Johnson said his case was one of the most “horrific set of facts that I’ve ever had to witness, to listen to and to imagine.” She told the killer what he did to 8-year-old Kendrick Lee and his three brothers had haunted her mind and interrupted her safe space.
RELATED: The child killing case Judge Johnson says haunts her
Coulter beat Kendrick to death and left his body decomposing for nearly a year in an apartment his siblings had to live in.
Judge Johnson sent Coulter to prison without possibility of parole, and with these parting words:
“Now you will leave this court, but you will not leave my mind.”
“And I hope, sir, when you’re in prison, I hope those same boys that have haunted my mind haunt yours.”
Who is Judge Johnson?
Judge Johnson was elected by her peers as the Administrative Judge over the Criminal Board. Overseeing that board means she helps manage court caseloads, implementation of new rules, and other administrative tasks.
Before the honor took the bench, Judge Johnson spent 17 years as the Assistant District Attorney for Harris County. At one point and time, she worked as the Felony Chief for the DA’s office in the court she now presides.
She helps young women on her docket overcome addictions, volunteering as a judge with the Success Through Addiction Recovery or STAR program.
Judge Johnson has degrees from Texas Christian University and South Texas College of Law.
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