Kelli D. Johnson
District Judge · 178th District Court
High confidence· verified August 22, 2026
District Judge · 178th District Court
What applies in this courtroom
185 verified requirements may apply in this courtroom, by layer: 1 published by Judge Kelli D. Johnson · 170 county-wide · 3 region-wide · 11 statewide — with 9 rule deadlines across those layers. Only the judge's own rules are specific to this courtroom; the other layers apply by court, county and state scope, and a court- or case-specific order can displace them.
The tabs below show the judge-and-division layer only. The Full Premium Report assembles the complete stack — every requirement, deadline table, ruling intelligence, live case-type scan, and source appendix in one cited document.
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District Judge — 178th District Court, Harris County
Judge Kelli Johnson was elected in 2016 to the 178th Criminal District Court after serving as Assistant District Attorney for 17 years. She enjoyed growing up watching her dad advocate for people in need as a plaintiff lawyer in the small town of Sulphur Springs, Texas.
Judge Johnson graduated in the top five of her class at her high school and went on to graduate Cum Laude from Texas Christian University in Business Communications and a fluency in Spanish from the University of Salamanca, Spain. Thereafter, she worked at the White House as an intern with the offices of White House Presidential Inquiries and the Office of Media Affairs. As a member of the White House Press Advance, she traveled the world as a liaison for the White House press for the President.
She graduated with honors from South Texas College of Law and was 8th on the Texas Bar Exam. In law school she enjoyed leadership opportunities as Governor of the American Bar Association over Texas and Louisiana law schools. She was President of the Student Body and Moot and Mock Trial finalists in various competitions. She enjoyed an internship at the Court of Criminal Appeals writing the only unanimous first impression opinion regarding criminal trademark infringement.
As Judge, she has been elected to her second term in 2020. She has had leadership roles in various positions. She was honored to have been selected by her peers to serve as the Administrative Judge over the Criminal Board. Probably her greatest pride is serving as a volunteer STAR (Success Through Addiction Recovery) judge over the young women’s docket. This is a passion of hers as she also serves on the State of Texas’ Board of Texas Association of Specialty Courts. She has been a speaker with various different organizations, including the Diversity summit with the Houston Bar Association, Ted Talks with the National Association of Women Judges, Texas Bar Association, and the organizer of the Criminal Bench Bar Conference. There she received the President’s award from the Houston Bar Association and has been nominated and selected as a fellow with the American Leadership Forum.
Lastly, and probably one of her proudest volunteer moments is her sponsorship and organization of the Texas High School Mock Trial Competition where local judges dedicate their time to preside over the youth competition.
She hopes that she paved the way for others as she was the first openly gay female judge elected in Harris County.
Published by the 178th District Court on this judge's own profile page and reproduced verbatim — BenchPath does not write or paraphrase judicial biographies. Read it on the court's site →
Appeals from this courtroom go to the First Court of Appeals or the Fourteenth Court of Appeals.
● LiveThat court's published bench (18): Amparo "Amy" Guerra, Andrew Johnson, Clint Morgan, David M. Gunn, Jennifer Caughey, Kristin Guiney, Susanna Dokupil, Terry Adams, Veronica Rivas-Molloy, Brad Hart, Chad Bridges, Katy Boatman, Ken Wise, Kevin Jewell, Maritza M. Antu, Randy Wilson, Tonya McLaughlin, Tracy Christopher
This county lies in the district the First and Fourteenth Courts of Appeals share; new appeals are assigned between them by random draw (Tex. Gov't Code sec. 22.202(h)). County-to-district assignment per Tex. Gov't Code sec. 22.201(b) and Tex. Gov't Code sec. 22.201(o), live-fetched registry.
1 verified rule specific to this judge's division, grouped by requirement category. 185 total requirements apply in this courtroom across all layers — the Full Premium Report assembles the complete stack.
No judge-level deadline on record runs shorter than a statewide deadline with the same trigger. The sentinel compares quoted timing across every published rule scoped to this judge on each visit — a clean result today is re-earned tomorrow.
No judge-scoped deadlines on this tab. Deadlines are extracted only when the source rule text states them — we never infer or calculate dates the rule does not explicitly contain. 9 rule deadlines apply in this courtroom across all layers — assembled with citations in the Full Premium Report.
Timing shown here is quoted from the rule text. Compute your actual date against the court's calendar and the rule itself — not legal advice.
No verified ruling summary yet. BenchPath generates ruling summaries from opinion and docket corpora (CourtListener where covered) and publishes them only after human review — fabricated judicial analytics are exactly what this platform refuses to ship.
The attributed-opinion corpus covers Florida's and California's appellate decisions today; a Texas opinion corpus is a separate build. Absence here is a coverage statement, never evidence about this judge.
Use the live case-law search below to see what exists for this judge today.
Answer three quick questions. The platform pulls Kelli D. Johnson's full public case-law record from the source, newest first — your matter never narrows the pull; it directs the relevance ranking and the dual-AI analysis. Every hit comes back Bluebook-cited with the opinion's own words quoted verbatim. The scan takes the time precision takes.
Case-law search
CourtListener · free connector · liveCoverage note: CourtListener is strongest for federal courts and state appellate courts. Texas trial-court opinions are essentially absent from the source — an absence of results is a coverage gap, not evidence about this judge.
last checked October 20, 2026
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District Judge — 178th District Court, Harris Countycurrent
date not recorded — present
assignment source →No source changes detected for this judge yet — when the underlying court pages move, it shows up here first.