Today's Austin American-Statesman carries the editorial, "A trial untainted by kiss of death."
No doubt, answering questions about a supposed romance long ago will prove embarrassing to Holland and O’Connell, who are no longer in public office. But a man’s life is at stake here.
Indeed, this is an issue that is larger than whether Hood is guilty or innocent.
The credibility of a state that always seems so eager to impose the death penalty is very much on the line. The process that leads to the ultimate sanction should be above reproach. That starts with the fundamental right to a fair and impartial trial.
The questions raised in this troubling case deserve answers
Sunday's Fort Worth Star-Telegram had the editorial, "Texas Death Row case might be right on the law — but it doesn’t seem fair ."
Texas law bars a criminal defendant filing repeated constitutional challenges to a conviction except under narrow circumstances. To get over that hurdle this late in the process, Hood would have to show that his claim about the amorous relationship couldn’t have been raised earlier or that "no rational juror" would have found him guilty if Holland had recused herself from his trial.
But Hood’s lawyers knew of suspicions about the judge and the prosecutor years ago, well before they documented the claim this month with an affidavit from a former prosecutor who called the relationship "common knowledge" at the time.
An investigator who looked into the allegation in the mid-1990s wrote in a separate affidavit that numerous lawyers in Collin County seemed to know but wouldn’t go on the record because they had to practice law in the county. The investigator wrote that a paralegal for one of Hood’s trial lawyers said his attorneys didn’t bring it up to avoid angering a judge they’d have to appear before in other cases. Writer Alan Berlow also raised the allegations on Salon.com in 2005.
It would take a hearing to establish whether the alleged relationship occurred. But the law doesn’t clearly provide for it — unless it lies within the parameters of basic due process. Hood might well be guilty of a horrible crime, but if he’d didn’t get a fair trial before an impartial tribunal, how can the public have confidence in the system?
Texas really doesn’t need another of these self-inflicted black eyes.
Earlier coverage of the Hood case is here.
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