Wednesday, December 17, 2025
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CJP Admonishes Tulare Superior Court Judge for Multiple Acts of ‘Serious Misconduct’
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Tulare Superior Court Judge Robin L. Wolfe yesterday drew a public admonishment from the Commission on Judicial Performance for engaging in multiple acts of “serious misconduct” including two incidents in which she asked court employees to personally appear before her on the record, one under the threat of monetary sanctions, to explain delays or missing details in reports.
Saying that her actions “had a detrimental effect on…professional relationships” with court staff and with litigants, the commission found that the discipline was appropriate even in light of a finding that “some of Judge Wolfe’s misconduct…appears to have been based, not in malice, bias, or indifference, but an attempt to ensure litigants were treated fairly.”
One incident highlighted by the judicial oversight body occurred in December 2023, when the judge issued an order to show cause as to why monetary sanctions should not be imposed for the failure of Family Court Services Director Angela Rodd-Terry to ensure that a child-custody limited investigation report was prepared in accordance with a timeline set by the court.
Wolfe ordered Rodd-Terry to personally appear at a hearing for sanctions scheduled for the following January. When she did so, Wolfe invited her into her chambers and informed her that when the jurist makes such orders, agency leaders are to know that they do not need to appear if the requested information is provided by the next court date.
Another Employee
Six months later, Wolfe asked another Family Court Services (“FCS”) employee, Irene Rodriguez, to come to the courtroom after an attorney let the judge know that a memorandum, indicating that a mother seeking permission to move out of the area had failed to appear for mediation, left out key information—specifically, that FCS had used outdated contact information to try to set up the session and that the lawyer had let the office know of the error.
When she appeared, Rodriguez was told to take a seat in the witness chair. Even though she told the court that she did not remember the specifics of the case, Wolfe said:
“So, I think on behalf of Family Services [the mother] needs to hear an apology, because I would have expected the Court to be noticed that there was an error by Family Services…not her error, and then the Court could [have] reset the matter.”
The commission declared that “[b]y summoning Ms. Rodriguez to the courtroom, and directing her to apologize to a litigant, Judge Wolfe abused her authority” and had acted “discourteous[ly] and with an “appearance of bias.”
Put in Foster Care
Yesterday’s decision also cites a November 2022 child-custody hearing during which the judge accused a mother of “playing games with the Court’s orders” and threatened to take steps that would result in having a child “put in foster care,” actions the commission said were “coercive” and “misrepresented the extent of the family court’s jurisdiction.”
The commission further noted Wolfe’s implementation of blanket policies forbidding litigants from bringing cell phones into her courtroom, even though local court rules only required them to turn off the devices, and “usually” prohibiting domestic violence support persons from sitting with clients at the counsel table as they are legally permitted to do in the absence of legal representation.
Wolfe also announced, in June of last year, that “if parties come to watch, they can come in at 8:00, 9:00, 10:00, but I don’t allow parties just to meander in because it’s disruptive to this Court.” The comment came on the heels of an incident in which the bailiff escorted out of the courtroom a domestic violence support person who showed up 15 minutes before a scheduled 9 a.m. hearing.
Eight commission members voted in favor of the public admonishment. One member voted against the discipline, favoring a private admonishment, and two others did not participate.
Wolfe has served on the court since 2017.
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