Death Penalty

Charles Dean Hood is scheduled to be executed on September 10.  The good news is that a hearing has been scheduled to consider explosive evidence about the fairness of his original trial, involving allegations that the prosecutor and the judge were involved in a romantic relationship during his trial.  The bad news is that the hearing is scheduled for September 12, two days after the execution.

Texas justice in death penalty cases is regularly the butt of both serious criticism and well-deserved ridicule.  This case isn't going to help that reputation. 

One of the iconic symbols of the shortcomings of Texas justice, particularly when it comes to death penalty cases, is the sleeping defense lawyer.  The case of Charles Dean Hood also involves allegations of a sleeping lawyer, but this time it is former Collin County District Attorney Tom O'Connell who is on the spot, and it's not so much about his sleeping, as about who he was allegedly sleeping with at the time of the trial.  And that would be Judge Verla Sue Holland.

Hood's attorneys have been raising this issue since the allegations first surfaced in a Salon.com article in 2005, but without success.  As the Houston Chronicle put it yesterday:

"The Court of Criminal Appeals has rejected Hood's efforts to block his execution on the grounds of the alleged relationship, citing procedural reasons but not addressing the merits of the accusations."

If this romantic relationship between Hood's trial judge and prosecutor did occur, it would obviously have seriously compromised his rights to a fair trial.  (The Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers has issued a statement  about this case, outlining the ethical duties of the parties involved and the potential impact of their actions on Hood's due process rights.)

Neither Holland nor O'Connell are talking, so Hood's lawyers have filed a civil action in order to compel them to testify about these allegations.

District Judge Robert Dry in Collin County, knowing full well that Hood is set to be executed on September 10, nonetheless scheduled a hearing for September 12.

Why would the judge do that??

The Houston Chronicle reports that the judge wrote that: 

"In reality, you are exploring a civil lawsuit for the estate of Mr. Hood. The Court is concerned about the sufficiency of your verification and your reasons for taking the depositions."

Everyone knows that the reason for the civil lawsuit is an attempt to prevent Texas from executing a man without first at least reviewing whether his basic fair trial rights were undermined. 

Texas courts are of course notorious for resisting such reviews, as they tend to slow down the execution process - in the well-known sleeping lawyer case, involving Calvin Burdine, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled, in a one-page unsigned opinion, that the lawyer's sleeping did occur, but that it didn't do his case any harm - so this latest effort to evade a review of serious allegations is sadly unsurprising.   

Hood's attorneys, Gregory Wiercioch and A. Richard Ellis, have asked Judge Dry to move the date of his hearing up to September 3, making a very straightforward and obvious argument they really shouldn't have to make at all:

"The Court should hold a hearing ... prior to the scheduled execution, because evidence gathered from taking the depositions of (Holland and O'Connell) may serve as the basis for a reprieve request to the Governor of Texas."

Brian

DPAC