An appellate court has reduced the sanction against Judge Gena Slaughter of Dallas, finding she didn’t willfully violate judicial ethics rules when she delayed a ruling for 15 months and had an ex parte communication.

But Slaughter did break the rules when she failed to respond to and didn’t cooperate with the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct regarding the complaint against her, ruled a special court of review, which issued a public warning against Slaughter.