A Dallas County judge is still — in the year of our Lord 2026 — forcing people to wear masks in her courtroom and demanding they disclose personal health information before they're allowed inside. Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock just sent her a letter that amounts to a polite legal version of "are you out of your mind."
Somewhere in Dallas, the last COVID Karen standing just got served.
Judge D'Metria Benson of Dallas County Court at Law No. 1 has apparently been running her courtroom like it's still March 2020. Masks required. Health screenings at the door. The whole pandemic theater production, six years after the rest of civilization moved on.
Chief Justice Blacklock's letter, dated May 13, didn't mince words. "It has come to my attention that you may be requiring people entering your courtroom to wear facemasks and to divulge intimate information about their health," he wrote. Then he dropped the hammer: "If this is true, please carefully reconsider whether you have legal authority for these actions."
That's judicial speak for "you don't."
Blacklock went further, making clear there's no legal basis for what Benson has been doing. "I am aware of no legitimate basis on which a Texas judge may condition a person's presence in a courtroom on a mask requirement or on a heightened health screening," he wrote. He pointed directly to the Texas Constitution, Article I, Section 13, which states that "all courts shall be open" — not "all courts shall be open as long as you've got a KN95 strapped to your face."
The Chief Justice also cited Rule 10(f) of the Rules of Judicial Administration, making it crystal clear that Judge Benson's little fiefdom doesn't get its own public health policy.
He gave her until 5 p.m. this Friday, May 15, to respond.
The story was first reported by The Texas Lawbook after attorney Mark Curriden challenged Benson's policy. Good for him. Someone had to say something, because apparently this has been going on long enough that it took the state's highest-ranking jurist stepping in to shut it down.
This is Texas. TEXAS. The state that told the federal government to pound sand on vaccine mandates. The state where the governor sent the National Guard to the border when Washington wouldn't. And somehow, in one Dallas County courtroom, the COVID regime never ended.
Think about what Judge Benson was doing here. Citizens with legal business before the court — people who might be fighting for their freedom, their kids, their property — were being told they couldn't enter unless they masked up and answered health questions. In America. In Texas. In 2026.
The pandemic ended. The emergency orders expired. The "science" that justified all of it has been debunked, walked back, or memory-holed. But Judge Benson kept the masks on like a security blanket.
Chief Justice Blacklock just ripped that blanket away. And every Texan who believes in open courts and basic constitutional rights should be thanking him for it.
The deadline is Friday. We'll be watching.
