Inset left: Natalia Cornelio (Que Onda Magazine/TikTok). Inset right: Ronald Haskell (Texas Department of Criminal Justice). Background: The residence where Haskell murdered six members of a family in 2014 near Spring, Tex. (Google Maps).
A local judge in Harris County, Texas, has been sanctioned over her "cloak and dagger" behavior in a high-profile capital murder case.
In July 2014, Ronald Haskell, 45, shot seven members of the Stay family at their home in the broader Houston area while searching for his ex-wife. That rampage took the lives of six members of the family, execution-style, and left a sole survivor. The since-condemned man killed his ex-sister-in-law, her husband, and four of their children; his ex was not at the residence.
In October 2019, Haskell arrived on death row in the Lone Star State. His execution date has yet to be scheduled.
In June 2024, 351st Criminal District Court Judge Natalia Cornelio signed a bench warrant that was used to start the process of transporting Haskell to a "private medical facility" for an MRI, according to a public reprimand issued by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct.
The warrant, however, contained a reference to a court date that did not exist — and, according to the commission, this was the first of Cornelio's efforts to shield Haskell's movements from public knowledge.
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The information on the bench warrant itself might have been a clue. The document read, in relevant part: "The case is set on the court docket for July 22, 2024, at 12:00 a.m. in the Harris County District Court listed above."
Of that would-be midnight hearing, the ethics board notes: "[N]o court proceeding was scheduled in State of Texas v. Ronald Lee Haskell."
It was the survivor of the massacre that initiated proceedings. The survivor herself received a notification about Haskell's transfer from a public system that monitors and alerts about such developments.
In August, prosecutors moved to subpoena Haskell's transportation logs, according to the public reprimand's statement of facts.
Haskell, in response, moved to quash the state's subpoena. And luckily for him, the judge overseeing the case was Cornelio herself.
On Sept. 12, 2024, Haskell moved to stop the state from looking into his movements. On Sept. 14, 2024, the judge granted the motion "and quashed the subpoena without affording the State an opportunity to be heard," according to the reprimand issued by the ethics board.
In October 2024, the Harris County District Attorney's Office, a bit fed up, filed a motion to recuse Cornelio from Haskell's case.
That motion accused the judge of issuing "a bench warrant for Haskell to be transported for a court setting knowing the information to be false." The DA's office also accused Cornelio of issuing "ex parte travel orders in a 'cloak and dagger' manner that prevented the State from challenging her actions" and of quashing the DA's "subpoena seeking information about the matter without affording the State an opportunity to be heard." Additionally, the DA's office accused Cornelio of exhibiting a "high degree of favoritism" toward Haskell.
In December 2024, the ethics board was apprised of the allegations against the judge, according to the reprimand.
In January of this year, following a series of hearing on the allegations against her, Cornelio was taken off the Haskell case.
The misconduct investigation went on throughout the year. The commission notes that during her appearances before the commission, the judge "did not dispute any" of the findings of fact.
The judge did, however, offer something of a defense.
"Judge Cornelio acknowledged the Bench Warrant contained inaccurate information about a nonexistent court appearance," the reprimand reads. "Cornelio explained her staff used a standard electronic form for the Bench Warrant and, as is a common practice in Harris County, identified a docket setting even though the defendant was not going to appear in court. Judge Cornelio admitted she 'should have been more careful about the details of the form [she] was signing' and that it was ultimately her responsibility to ensure the Bench Warrant did not contain misleading information."
Cornelio, for her part, also admittedly said she granted the motion to quash on a weekend without affording the state an opportunity to be heard — but insisted she no longer issues rulings without a hearing involving the parties to a case, or without making sure the parties have agreed to a ruling absent a hearing.
The commission determined Cornelio violated three canons of the judicial ethics code and one section of the Texas Constitution by "performing her judicial duties with bias, and manifesting by words or conduct bias in the performance of her judicial duties towards Haskell when she signed and issued the Bench Warrant knowing it contained false information about a nonexistent court appearance" and by "failing to afford the State an opportunity to be heard.
"Cornelio's failures in the foregoing respects constituted willful and persistent conduct that is clearly inconsistent with the proper performance of her judicial duties and cast public discredit on the judiciary and on the administration of justice," the commission summarized.