Justice, Texas Style

[Jefferson23]

By Scott Horton

Texas is in the process of declaring itself a judicial ethics-free zone. Adam Liptak reports on the latest courthouse embarrassment to emanate from deep in the heart of crazy:

Charles Dean Hood was sentenced to death in 1990 by a Texas judge who had been sleeping with the prosecutor in his case. It took Mr. Hood almost 20 years to establish that fact. But he finally managed to force the two officials to testify about their rumored affair in the fall of 2008. They admitted it. Texas’s highest court for criminal matters, its Court of Criminal Appeals, considered all of this and concluded that Mr. Hood should be executed anyway. In a 6-to-3 decision in September, the court told Mr. Hood that he had taken too long to raise the issue of whether a love affair between a judge and a prosecutor amounted to a conflict of interest.

Mr. Hood has asked the United States Supreme Court to hear his case. On Thursday, 21 former judges and prosecutors filed a brief supporting him. So did 30 experts in legal ethics. “A judge who has engaged in an intimate, extramarital, sexual relationship with the prosecutor trying a capital murder case before her has a conflict of interest and must recuse herself,” the brief from the ethics experts said. “Of all the courts to have considered the issue, only the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in this case failed to recognize this imperative.” The affair itself, as described in the depositions of the two former lovers, sounded tawdry and sad. Judge Verla Sue Holland, who presided over Mr. Hood’s case in a district court in Collin County, Tex., testified that she and the prosecutor, Thomas S. O’Connell Jr., had had sex at each other’s homes when their spouses were away. This happened, she said, seven or eight times.

In any other jurisdiction, these facts would lead to some simple conclusions. The judge had a duty to disclose the conflict that arose from her intimate relationship with the prosecutor, or, at the very least to recuse herself. She had no business proceeding with the trial, which no serious observer would ever consider fair. But then, this is Texas, where the “plenty guilty” rule applies.

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2010/02/hbc-90006591

[liberalhistorian]

1. I really don't think the words

"justice" and "Texas" belong in the same sentence, or anywhere near each other, frankly. That state isn't just off the planet when it ocmes to its judicial system and actions, it's on its OWN planet.

[LiberalFighter]

2. How was Mr Hood suppose to file an appeal based on a conflict of interest

when the facts weren't available within the time restrictions?

There is a difference between thinking vs having the facts. It appears that much of the judicial system in Texas is corrupt when they think that withholding information is acceptable behavior.

[Jefferson23]

4. Selective at best, and without conscience. n/t

[midnight]

3. Conflict of interest only matters if the defendant is Ted Stevens....

[Doctor_J]

5. The judge and prosecutor are guilty of attempted murder of Mr. Hood

they should be prosecuted, but I am betting Repukes don't get prosecuted in TX

[bertman]

6. You are absolutely correct, Doctor_J. I have been arguing for years that this level of

prosecutorial misconduct in a capital case warrants exactly what you suggested--prosecution for attempted murder. The same goes for police officers who falsify evidence or withhold exculpatory evidence in a capital case. When someone's life is treated like an object for someone's personal/professional advancement, that person deserves the worst.

If that happened it would reduce these horrific incidents of people's lives being ruined for professional gain.

Reccomend.

[Jakes Progress]

7. Think it's bad now?

Just wait until the SCOTUS recent ruling lets corporations start electing judges. If you don't own an oil well or an insurance company in Texas, you are truly screwed.