Texas judge charged with blocking execution appeal Agence France-Presse

Published: Friday February 20, 2009





Print This Email This WASHINGTON (AFP)  A legal commission began work Thursday investigating the conduct of a Texas judge who sent a condemned man to his death rather than receive his last-minute appeal after office hours.



In a lawsuit before the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct, Sharon Keller -- the Presiding Judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals -- was charged with "willful and persistent conduct ... that casts public discredit on the judiciary or the administration of justice."



The charges could eventually result in her removal from office.



Keller's "willful and persistent failure to follow Court of Criminal Appeals' execution day procedures on September 25, 2007 (were) clearly inconsistent with the proper performance of her duties," the commission said.



The chain of events began on that day in late September 2007 when the US Supreme Court decided to take up the question of the legality of lethal injections.



That decision launched lawyers in Texas for Michael Richard, who was scheduled to be executed at 6:00 pm by lethal injection, on a race against the clock to draw up an appeal and submit it before the court of criminal appeals closed at 5:00 pm.



With ten minutes to go before closing time, the lawyers called the court to ask for another 20 minutes but were refused -- an order given by Keller directly, according to the commission.



Richard was the last man executed before the start of a seven-month moratorium.



The charges against Keller, who was elected Presiding Judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for consecutive six-year terms in 2000 and 2006, could lead to a trial before the Texas Supreme Court.



Jim Harrington, the complaint's author and president of the Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP), welcomed the commission's start.



"We hope this is a first step that will lead to her removal from office. What Judge Keller did was legally and morally reprehensible and brought the administration of criminal justice in Texas into ill repute across the nation," he said in a statement.



"Removing Judge Keller from office would send a signal that not even the highest criminal judge in the state is above the law.



"It would also be proper punishment for the morally shameful way she let a person die without final recourse to the courts," he added.



Keller was cleared by her peers in October after a legal battle with the condemned man's widow.



In the course of that inquiry, a judge who was on duty to receive after hours appeals on nights when executions are scheduled said she was sickened by Keller's unilateral decision.



Earlier this week Texas lawmakers introduced a bill calling for a special committee to consider impeaching appeals court judge Sharon Keller "for gross neglect of duty and conducting her official duties with willful disregard for human life."



Legislator Lou Burnam, who acknowledged the bill has little chance of passing, said it was "one thing for a banker to close shop at 5 o'clock sharp.



"But a public official who stands between a human being and the death chamber must be held to a higher standard."



In an editorial Thursday, The New York Times newspaper held that judges "cannot be allowed to use their extraordinary discretion to deny litigants the fundamentals of due process. That is especially true if the stakes are literally life and death."







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