Judge reverses cowboy boot ban

A Lakeway municipal judge said he's reversed a ban on cowboy boots in the courtroom after an American-Statesman report on Saturday said an Austin lawyer was considering challenging the ban. "Since there has never been a problem with boots (or spurs) in my courtroom, I have reversed the cowboy boot ban, effective Saturday, September 18," Judge Kevin Madison wrote in an e-mail. "Attorneys, witnesses, and court litigants in the Great State of Texas can now breathe a sigh of relief. "I guess the adage 'Don't Mess with Texas' should be changed to 'Don't Mess with Texans' Cowboy Boots!' " Madison was referring to an outcry over the ban from lawyers across the state and from dozens of people who submitted online comments to the story as well as to a American-Statesman column Sunday on the matter. "Oh my goodness, you would have thought I was renaming the state ... New Jersey or something," Madison said Sunday in an interview. "You should have seen the stuff: 'Tar and feather him. Run him out on the rails.' " Lawyer George Lobb, who said he often wears dress cowboy boots — a common sartorial choice among Texas lawyers — and is scheduled to appear in a Lakeway court this week, had called the ban "absurd" and was considering challenging it...more

They need to give this judge the boot.