HOUSTON -- Imagine showing up late for court. Few judges would accept any excuses. But a Harris County state district judge is often the one not on time, according to a KPRC Local 2 Troubleshooters report Wednesday.

At 9 a.m. defendants and their families are told to be in the courtroom.

"You sit there for hour after hour and there's nothing you can do about it," a lawyer said.

Morning after morning, the Troubleshooters found State District Judge Mike Wilkinson's bench empty.

By 10:30 a.m., families began to whisper about missing work or wondering if the judge would show up at all.

But as people lined up each day to get to court on time, the 9 a.m. hour is the time for chores at Wilkinson's home in east Harris County.

The Troubleshooters' hidden cameras found him carrying bags of feed or hauling buckets to his barn.

He didn't seem to be in any hurry as he took care of some hungry cows.

As the Troubleshooters watched him day after day at home, they were also inside his courtroom, where people said they were waiting on him.

"No, it's not appropriate to be keeping people waiting on a regular basis," said Debbie Mantooth Stricklin, an administrative judge.

Wilkinson earns $130,000 a year. He only answers to the voters, but Stricklin is the administrator for all 22 criminal district courts in Houston.

"It's our responsibility to take care of our business efficiently," she said.

The judge's attendance is a big joke in the courthouse, the station reported. The Troubleshooters overheard one defense lawyer saying, "I'm assigned to the 179th today, so I'm not going to get anything done." They also heard an attorney joking with a prosecutor saying, "Do they even need prosecutors in that court anymore?"

To others, it's no joke at all.

"It makes everybody look bad. It makes it look like the lawyers are lazy, the DAs are lazy. It makes it look to the clients like nobody is working at all, and that's not the truth. Most people in the criminal courthouse work very hard," a lawyer said.

The Troubleshooters showed Wilkinson the hidden camera video of his late trips to work. He said he's never held a regular 9 a.m. docket call, and the lawyers and people waiting in his court should know that.

"I've been doing the same thing for 18 years and no one brings this to my attention -- that it's a real problem," Wilkinson said.

On one morning when the Troubleshooters found Wilkinson arriving to work at 11:40 a.m., he said he was sick that day. Other mornings, in between chores, he said he called his staff several times before heading in because they often get work done without him.

"Is that the measure of somebody being productive in your view -- somebody wearing a black robe? That's your idea of work getting done? There's a lot of work that gets done that doesn't involve me sitting on the bench and …," Wilkinson said.

"How are you getting work done when you're in your back yard?" KPRC's Stephen Dean said.

"How late do I work?" Wilkinson said.

He said he works late a lot and other lawyers and prosecutors told the Troubleshooters that he's fair and thorough, even "brilliant" when he is on the bench.

The Troubleshooters pulled records from 2005 that showed he finalized the fewest number of cases among all 22 criminal courts -- 1,566. He said he was assigned few cases and he showed them the year before, in 2004, when he disposed of the highest number -- 1,855 cases.

"There's lots of reasons why cases disposed of will go up and down," Wilkinson said.

"Not because you're not there at 9 a.m.?" Dean said.

"Absolutely not," Wilkinson said.

The Troubleshooters requested records that show exactly when Wilkinson swiped his card at work for the past several months, but the county is fighting to keep those secret.

The judge said he's following all the rules and getting the job done.