Editorials appeared in three major Texas newspapers on Saturday morning; the Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and the San Antonio Express-News.
Let's begin with, "Three capital cases illustrate how tactics trump truth," for the Morning News.
Convicted killer Charles Dean Hood is getting a new day in court, but not for all the right reasons. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has granted him a new sentencing hearing, but that's beside the point.
The point is that Hood was convicted of murder in a scenario right out of Desperate Housewives. The Collin County judge who gazed out over the courtroom during the trial in 1990 would see a district attorney who had been in her bed. Their secret tryst – even though they had broken it off by trial time – represents such an obvious possibility of bias that any reasonable mind would tell the court to try the whole case again and keep it clean.
And:
The Hood trial is one of three Texas capital murder cases lined up before the Supreme Court – all revealing how legal jousting has become more important than pure justice. All increasing our resolve that the death penalty should be abolished.
Earlier this month, a judge held up the execution of Hank Skinner in a 1993 triple murder out of the Panhandle. Again, procedure was at issue, this time the death warrant. The Supreme Court is being asked to take on the far more important issue of whether testing should be ordered on evidence that hasn't undergone DNA analysis. Facts in the case indicate that the answer is yes.
Finally, there's the case of Delma Banks, convicted in a 30-year-old murder near Texarkana. He awaits word from the Supreme Court on complaints that authorities hid the fact they used testimony from a paid police snitch and a shaky witness who was intensively coached.
The chess game continues, more a matter of tactics than truth-finding. That's no way for Texas to determine who lives and who dies.
"Undermining faith in the Texas criminal justice system," is the title of the Star-Telegram editorial.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has dealt with the case of Death Row inmate Charles Dean Hood a dozen times. And still the fundamental due process violation that tainted his 1990 capital murder trial hasn't been adequately addressed.
On Wednesday, the court granted Hood a new sentencing hearing. But that was based on jury instructions that a majority of the judges found to be flawed.
What still hangs over the case is the fact that the judge who presided over the trial and the district attorney who prosecuted the case had engaged in an extramarital affair and tried to keep it secret for years after Hood was sentenced to death in a double slaying.
Hood has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to order a new trial. That request is supported by dozens of legal ethicists, retired judges and other former officials. A friend-of-the-court brief joined by William Sessions, a longtime federal judge in San Antonio and FBI director, and former Texas Gov. Mark White argues that Hood "received the ultimate penalty -- death -- in a proceeding presided over by a judge whose impartiality appears doubtful at best."
Judges are supposed to recuse themselves from cases in which there might be even an appearance that they're biased. Who knows whether then-Judge Verla Sue Holland was biased because of an affair with Tom O'Connell, then-Collin County district attorney. No one can be sure -- and that's the problem.
When people's lives and liberty are on the line, lawyers and the judges they appear before aren't supposed to be cavorting outside the courthouse then pretending they have strictly a business relationship that respects the integrity of the court, the law and their professional obligations. The taxpaying public expects more and is entitled to it.
And:
If the judge and DA had done their ethical duty at the time, questions about the system's integrity would not loom over this case. The public wouldn't be left wondering whether a capital trial was entirely fair. And taxpayers wouldn't be footing the bill for continuing litigation and possibly a new trial.
How many times must we say this: If Texas is going to continue to impose the death penalty, everyone involved in capital trials must ensure that the prosecutions are fairly and properly done. Otherwise, the public can't have faith in the system.
The Express-News editorial is,"High court should take up tainted Texas trial."
Imagine finding yourself in court, on trial for jaywalking. You, of course, maintain your innocence. The prosecutor, however, seeks and obtains the maximum punishment allowable under the law.
Then you discover the court was far from being fair and impartial. The judge who presided over your trial was engaged in a secret, intimate relationship with the prosecutor who was trying to put you away.
The Texas Rules of Civil Procedure require judges to recuse themselves from proceedings in which impartiality or personal bias concerning a party — in this case, the prosecution — might reasonably be questioned.
And:
In the absence of responsible action by the top criminal court in Texas, 21 former judges and prosecutors, including former Bexar County District Attorney Sam Millsap, former Texas Governor and Attorney General Mark White and former federal judge and FBI Director William Sessions have called on the U.S. Supreme Court to review Hood's case. The high court should do so.
If, as the evidence suggests, Hood is guilty of two heinous crimes, then prosecutors should be able to obtain their conviction in a court untainted by personal conflicts. Allowing his conviction in Holland's courtroom to stand leaves a stain on the Texas judiciary that erodes public trust in the impartiality of the justice system.
Earlier coverage of the Hood case begins with this post. More on Hank Skinner, here.
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