After a year-long secret investigation, a ruling body of federal judges in Washington, D.C., has dismissed a high-profile misconduct complaint against Houston-based Judge Edith Jones of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Jones had been accused of publicly mocking the appeals of the mentally disabled and Mexican-born defendants and of describing African-Americans and Hispanics as "sadly" more likely to commit crimes.

Three judges and a court-appointed attorney probed whether Jones, a former chief circuit judge, improperly discussed pending death row cases and whether she made discriminatory remarks in public.

Ultimately, that investigative committee concluded that there wasn't enough evidence to justify disciplining Jones, despite affidavits from five law students and an attorney who thought her actions constituted misconduct. The judicial council, the ruling body of the Washington, D.C. circuit, then adopted the recommendations in August in a related 73-page order and report that was made public this morning.

The misconduct complaint against Jones was originally filed in June 2013 by a group of nonprofits and prominent legal ethicists. They alleged that Jones improperly discussed pending cases and made derogatory remarks during a speech at the University of Pennsylvania in February of last year.

The complaint also said she improperly told another federal judge to "shut up" during a court hearing.

Chief Justice John Roberts of the U.S. Supreme Court last year ordered that the unusual complaint be reviewed by judges outside Jones' own circuit court, which oversees federal cases in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

It is only one of a handful of times in U.S. history that a federal circuit judge has been the subject of a public judicial misconduct complaint and a formal disciplinary review.

Normally, such complaints and reviews are secret.

In this case, the three-judge panel recommended dismissal of the complaints involving Jones' speech and noted that she had already apologized for telling the other judge to "shut up."

The decision became public today only after 11 legal ethicists and anti-death penalty attorneys announced they had filed an appeal. That group has asked for their complaint to be reconsidered.

Among other things, the dismissal order released this week says Jones herself admitted to describing mental disability as a "red herring" in death penalty appeals, though it is a defense approved by the U.S. Supreme Court.

She admitted she used an analogy to drone strikes in rebuttal to the argument "that the death penalty kills innocents."

She agreed she'd said something about how Mexican nationals might prefer American death row to prison in their own country, even though Mexico does not have capital punishment, and that she said both blacks and Hispanics sadly "seem to commit more heinous crimes."

But none of those comments were considered misconduct by the investigating judges. Under federal law, misconduct is defined as "conduct prejudicial to the effective and expeditious administration of the business of the courts."

The jurists said they could not determine whether Jones said minorities were more "prone" to commit crimes — or made other alleged remarks they said could have been considered misconduct.

Judge Jones declined comment when reached by the Chronicle Wednesday, noting that the confidential review process prohibits her from speaking publicly about the complaint. The responses she submitted privately to the D.C. judicial council and to the investigating committee were not disclosed.

Ultimately, the three investigating judges - and the entire council - concluded they lacked enough evidence to determine exactly what Jones said.

The report shows that an attorney hired by the Washington, D.C., circuit as an investigator could find no recording of her speech. The investigator interviewed the law students and the attorney who filed affidavits, as well as others, the dismissal order shows.

The investigating judges who wrote the report interviewed the attorney and Jones, but not the students who filed affidavits, the document shows.

In the appeal, the complainants argued that the panel discounted the strength of the students' statements, which were provided soon after the speech.

"The student affidavits corroborated and underscored the fact of the above statements, and added the students' individual memories, reactions, and impressions. Moreover, the student affidavits were clear that the nature and impact of Judge Jones' statements — particularly those regarding race — were deeply dismaying to many in the audience."