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Court Decorum — 164th District Court — posted on the court's own website — the court-procedure tier (standing procedures, policies, and preferences the court itself publishes), distinct from the TOPICs-registered local-rules tier (TRCP 3a registration applies to local rules). Operative requirements quoted verbatim; the posted document is the controlling text.
Texas > Harris County > 164th District Court
COURT DECORUM 1) Dress appropriately. 2) Stand each time the Judge enters the courtroom or exits the courtroom. Stand each time the jury enters or exits the courtroom. 3) Please stand when addressing the Court. The court may instruct you to remain seated in a hearing in which there will be a lot of back and forth discussion amongst the court and counsel. Please sit when questioning a witness. 4) Ask to approach the witness the first time and then you may approach freely. 5) Don ’ t address witnesses, parties or opposing counsel by their first names. Use their titles. 6) Line up your witnesses in order to avoid delay. Advise the court if there are witness timing issues so that witnesses may be taken out of order, if necessary, or allowed to be on call so they don ’ t have to wait a lengthy period of time to testify. Parties should be prepared to allow witnesses to testify out of order and be generous toward each other in this regard. 7) Identify yourself to the Judge and the court reporter before a hearing begins. Provide a business card with your name, correct address, phone number, fax number and e-mail address. Also include party representation. 8) Plaintiff ’ s exhibits are to be marked with “ Plaintiff ’ s Exhibit ” stickers. Defendant ’ s exhibits are to be marked with “ Defendant ’ s Exhibit ” stickers. Use only numbers when marking exhibits instead of letters. Parties should provide their own. In an emergency, a limited number of exhibit stickers may be obtained from the court reporter. 9) A hard copy of the exhibit list and a hard copy of the exhibits should be delivered to Judge C. Elliott Thornton and the court reporter 2 business days prior to the court proceedings. Exhibits with multiple pages should be stapled, bound and/or assembled so that they may be accurately preserved. 10) Redactions should be made prior to the exhibit being offered. Exhibits redacted after the exhibit is admitted (subject to redaction or without initial objection) are to be marked as an “ A ” exhibit and the original, unredacted exhibit is kept by the court reporter for the record. Once an exhibit is offered (even if not admitted), it must be tendered to the court reporter. 11) Once an exhibit number has been assigned, the same exhibit number may not be used for another exhibit, even if the original exhibit is withdrawn or not used in the hearing or trial. 12) Page/line designations of deposition testimony, along with a non-condensed copy of the transcript, are to be furnished to the court reporter prior to the offer. When one person is reading from written deposition testimony, the reader must say “ Question ” prior to reading each question and “ Answer ” prior to reading each answer. 13) Arrangements for acquiring testimony after a hearing or during a trial may be made directly with the court reporter. Please advise the court reporter a week before a hearing or trial if a daily copy is required. You must notify the other side of your request. You may reach the court reporter at Cynthia_Daugherty@justex.net or call 832-927-2384.
Reviewer note: Own-site content fetched by us 2026-08-22 (Phase 3 justex/page sweep; hashed receipts in custody). Complete document text quoted verbatim (whitespace-normalized); the posted document is the controlling text. Composed from the court's own published site content (justex content API section, our sweep receipts).
1 verbatim requirement on judge preferences.
20 verbatim requirements on judge preferences.