Judge Brutally Whips His Disabled Daughter in Footage Caught on a Webcam

A video of a Texas family court judge repeatedly beating his teenage disabled daughter with a belt—recorded on her bedroom computer's webcam and uploaded to YouTube in 2011—generated millions of views, law enforcement investigation, and national conversation about the legal boundaries of corporal punishment of children in the United States.

Judge William Adams, who handled child abuse cases in Aransas County, Texas, was captured in the 2004 footage administering what he described as "discipline" to his then-16-year-old daughter Hillary, who has ataxic cerebral palsy. The video showed him striking her repeatedly with a belt while her mother also participated, over a dispute about her use of the internet.

Hillary Adams uploaded the video herself, explaining that she had held it for seven years and chose to release it after her parents refused to acknowledge the harm they had caused.

The footage raised immediate legal questions. Texas law permits corporal punishment by parents but prohibits inflicting serious injury. Whether the conduct in the video constituted criminal injury became the central issue for investigators. The statute of limitations on the 2004 incident had expired, limiting prosecution options.

Judge Adams was suspended from his court duties while the investigation proceeded. He was not criminally charged. The Texas Supreme Court lifted his suspension in November 2012, but voters removed him from the bench at the polls: he lost his re-election bid in the March 2014 Republican primary.

Sources

• Texas judge who beat his daughter is reinstated to bench — NPR member station WKYU

The case catalyzed discussion about whether the United States remained an outlier among developed nations in its legal tolerance for physical punishment of children. Corporal punishment by parents is prohibited in more than 60 countries; in the United States it remains legal in all 50 states, with varying restrictions on the degree of force permitted.