It's May of 2026. COVID is a memory. Fauci is writing his memoir. And a Dallas County judge is still making people wear masks to enter her courtroom. Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock just sent her a letter that is, frankly, a masterpiece of judicial restraint — because what he clearly wanted to say was "are you out of your mind?"
A mask mandate. In Texas. In the year of our Lord 2026. You genuinely cannot make this stuff up.
The judge in question is D'Metria Benson, who runs Dallas County Court at Law No. 1. According to The Gateway Pundit, Benson has been requiring everyone entering her courtroom to wear facemasks and — here's the cherry on top — disclose personal health information before they're allowed inside. Because apparently the Fourth Amendment took a personal day.
Chief Justice Blacklock's letter, dated May 13, didn't beat around the bush. He wrote: "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 followed that up with a line that belongs in a textbook: "If this is true, please carefully reconsider whether you have legal authority for these actions."
Translation: You don't.
Blacklock cited the Texas Constitution directly — Article I, Section 13, which says "all courts shall be open." Not "all courts shall be open, unless a judge decides she's still living in April 2020." Open. Period. He also referenced Rule 10(f) of the Rules of Judicial Administration, making it crystal clear that Benson's little COVID theater production has zero legal foundation.
"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," Blacklock wrote. That's the Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court telling a lower court judge that her policy is made up.
He gave her until 5 p.m. on Friday, May 15 to respond — which is legal speak for "fix this by the weekend or we'll fix it for you."
Attorney Mark Curriden is the one who brought the issue to light, challenging Benson's policy and escalating it to the state's highest court. Good on him. Somebody had to.
Let's be honest about what's really going on here. This isn't about public health. COVID hasn't been a public health emergency for years. This is about control. There's a certain kind of government official who got a taste of unilateral authority during the pandemic and simply never gave it back. They liked telling you what to wear. They liked deciding who could enter public buildings. They liked the power.
And Benson apparently liked it so much she's still doing it three years after the rest of the country moved on.
The beautiful thing about Texas is that this nonsense doesn't fly for long. The Chief Justice of the state's Supreme Court personally intervened, cited the state constitution, and gave her a Friday deadline. That's not a suggestion. That's a judicial smackdown with a countdown clock.
We fought a whole national battle over mask mandates, lockdowns, and government overreach. We won. And if Judge Benson missed the memo, Chief Justice Blacklock just hand-delivered it.
