A Texas state district judge needs to take another look at the oath he took when he became a judge way down yonder in Comal County.

On Jan. 12, 2018, Judge Jack Robison ordered a trial jury that had voted to convict a woman of sex trafficking and the sale and purchae of a child to reconsider its verdict. He said God had told him the woman was innocent and that her conviction would be a “miscarriage of justice.”

The Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct has issued a public warning to the judge. A public punishment is deemed more severe than a private one, as it puts the sanction against a jurist on the public record.

The jury, by the way, did not acquit the woman; it still found her guilty of the crime and sentenced her to 25 years in prison. An appeals court, though, declared a mistrial stemming from the judge’s outburst.

Why re-read the oath? Because the only time the judge even says the word “God” is at the very end when he or she says “so help me God.” Judges take an oath to uphold state and federal law and to be faithful not to God but to the  U.S. Constitution.

Judge Robison blamed his outburst a year ago on a memory lapse related to some medication he was taking. And to his credit, he did report himself to the judicial conduct commission.

Still, it would be instructive for this judge — as well as all other jurists — to understand fully what their solemn oath entails. They pledge to be faithful to laws written by fellow fallible human beings.

Whatever devotion these judges feel toward the Almighty needs to be kept private.