Texas Judge in ‘Daughter Beating’ Video Back on the Bench

Judge William Adams

Rockport, Texas

Judge William Adams, the Texas judge seen viciously beating his teenage daughter in a video she posted on YouTube last year was back on the bench Wednesday after a year-long suspension.

Adams, the top judge in Aransas County, worked through a normal docket of juvenile cases, divorces and estate settlements on his first day back. He said nothing to address the incident that kept him off the bench for a year.

The State Commission on Judicial Conduct issued Adams a public warning in September. However, The Texas Supreme Court last week lifted Adams' suspension, during which he collected his $150,000 salary.

In the year prior to his suspension, Adams dealt with at least 349 family law cases, nearly 50 of which involved state caseworkers seeking to determine whether parents were fit to raise their children. The state will no longer file physical abuse cases in his court, but most of the state cases had to do with neglect or poor living environments, according to the district clerk.

The nearly 8-minute video went viral on YouTube and was viewed by millions of Internet users. In it, Adams is seen lashing his then-16-year-old daughter Hillary on her legs more than a dozen times and growing increasingly irate while she screams and refuses to turn over on a bed to be beaten. At one point the father screams: "Lay down or I'll spank you in your (expletive) face."

Hillary Adams said she released the video, which she secretly taped in 2004, hoping it would compel her father to get help. She said the beating came because she had illegally downloaded digital files on the Internet.

After the video was released, Adams said his daughter posted the clip to get back at him for telling her he would be reducing the amount of financial support he gave her and taking away her Mercedes. A day earlier, he had told a television station that the video looked worse than it was.

Both Hillary Adams and her mother, Hallie Adams, who is also seen hitting Hillary in the video, have said William Adams is not fit to return to the bench. The local district attorney said too much time had passed to bring charges against William Adams.

The courthouse's switchboard was flooded with angry callers and even emails about Adams, but county officials have said all along that the situation was out of their hands. Adams is an elected official with a term running through 2014. County commissioners voted to slightly lower his salary — he earned about $150,000 during his suspension — but there was little else they could do.

In the courtroom, security has been stepped up in response to threats received following the release of the video, including visitors now being required to pass through metal detectors to enter the building.