Answer: All three of them.
Liptak at the New York Times writes about the unbearably unseemly Texas death penalty case of Charles Dean Hood, where it was learned after Judge Verla Sue Holland dropped the gavel hard upon his head that she was letting the prosecutor, Thomas S. O’Connell Jr., have some ex parte time with her.
Naturally, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals saw nothing wrong with this, deflecting the nastiness by hiding behind the time bar.
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.
Was it a “love affair?” That makes it sound so very romantic, as was more fully described in the Texas decision.
Judge Cochran took a stab at characterizing the relationship in a footnote. It was misleading, Judge Cochran wrote, to say that Judge Holland and Mr. O’Connell had “an intimate sexual relationship,” though she conceded that the phrase was “literally true.”
“Theirs was hardly the torrid relationship of romance novels,” Judge Cochran clarified. It was, rather, “a close personal relationship that, on a few rare occasions, dipped into intimacy.”
Spare me. What a shame that they didn’t let Hood in on the elicit love, so he could challenge it earlier. Perhaps they could have had a ménage à trois.
The Hood case is one of the most absurd imaginable. Even for Texas, where sleeping lawyers provide effective assistance of counsel. The defense has sought review of the affirmance by the United States Supreme Court.
The Hood case is one of the most absurd imaginable. Even for Texas, where sleeping lawyers provide effective assistance of counsel. The defense has sought review of the affirmance by the United States Supreme Court.
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.”
You think? This may be one of the most embarrassing failures of the law in years, made all the more hilarious by the efforts of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to white wash the problem. Except it’s not likely as funny to Charles Dean Hood, the fellow who was sentenced to death after oral argument.
Update: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has reversed Hood’s death sentence and sent it back for resentence. Why? Hint, not because Judge Verla Sue Holland wears support hose:
Update: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has reversed Hood’s death sentence and sent it back for resentence. Why? Hint, not because Judge Verla Sue Holland wears support hose:
The new hearing has been ordered by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals because the court found that Hood’s jurors did not have an adequate opportunity to consider circumstances that would call for a sentence other than death – circumstances such as Hood’s family background and allegations that he was abused as a child.And not a word about the nookie. Now that’s the way for a dignified court to act. I’m still waiting for them to give Hood a new trial before a judge who isn’t naked under the robes.
H/T Ed at Blawgreview
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