Ender said she had no idea she would be the first Hispanic woman state district court judge in Texas history. Her judicial duties initially included juvenile law, the appeals of which go directly to the
Texas Supreme Court. Since her tenure on the court began, she has observed an explosion in both juvenile and child-abuse cases in Webb County. She urged support in the 1990s for legislation sponsored by
Lieutenant Governor Bob Bullock, which called for reduced class sizes in public schools and testing for learning disabilities. Ender was among civic and political figures in Laredo who fought for the establishment of the four-year
Texas A&M International University, located off the interstate loop named for Bullock. Palomo faced no
Republican opposition in the
general election held on November 6, 2012 in the overwhelmingly Democratic county. In 2011, Judge Ender forbade the family of murder defendant Joseph Allen Garcia from observing the jury selection process in the case. She cited the fire code and the lack of available space in the courtroom in making her determination. Garcia was tried and convicted in the 2003 drive-by killing in Laredo of Mario Alberto Gonzalez. Garcia, who maintains that he never committed the crime, was sixteen years old at the time of the arrest. He posted bond in the amount of $1.25 million and promptly fled to
Mexico. Garcia was named to the U.S. Marshal's "15 Most Wanted List". The case was carried by
John Walsh's
television series, ''
America's Most Wanted''. After seven years, Garcia was re-arrested in 2010 and immediately
extradited to the United States. Garcia ultimately received seventy years imprisonment, which he began serving in the state prison in
Beeville. In 2013, after Ender had retired from the bench, the
Texas Fourth Court of Appeals in San Antonio determined that she violated Garcia's rights under the
Sixth Amendment to the
United States Constitution by barring his family from observing jury deliberations. The appeals court ordered a new trial at the district court level on grounds that Judge Ender failed to make proper accommodations for the Garcia family so they could observe the deliberations. Otherwise, the appeals court said that the trial had elements of a "private" event, rather than a fully public proceeding. ==Personal life==