This morning, a hearing in Collin County will decide at least part of the future of the Charles Dean Hood case. His lawyers are attempting to interview the former judge and prosecutor at the heart of serious ethical questions in his capital murder trial. Hood is scheduled to be executed Wednesday night. A flurry of weekend editorials called for review.
Saturday's New York Times had, "Too Soon and Too Many Questions."
Texas is infamous for the cavalier way that it applies the death penalty. Still, the case of Charles Hood, who is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday is especially appalling. Mr. Hood’s lawyers have presented evidence that during his trial, the judge was having an affair with the prosecutor. Gov. Rick Perry should grant Mr. Hood a temporary reprieve, and if the reports of the affair are correct, Mr. Hood must be given a new trial.
Last year, Texas carried out 60 percent of the nation’s executions. Prosecutors have a record of pushing for the death penalty in cases that defy both the law and basic standards of decency. A few years ago, the state attorney general battled all the way to the Supreme Court in a failed attempt to win the right to execute an inmate whose lawyer repeatedly fell asleep during his trial.
Lawyers for Mr. Hood have presented an affidavit from a former assistant district attorney who worked in the Collin County office that prosecuted the murder and robbery case. He said that at the time of the trial it was “common knowledge” in the office that the then-district attorney, Thomas S. O’Connell Jr., and the trial judge, Verla Sue Holland, were having a romantic relationship.
A state court judge has scheduled a hearing for Monday on the allegations of an affair, and Texas’s attorney general has said that he would ask the courts to conduct an investigation. It is critical that Mr. Hood be given a reprieve long enough for that investigation to be completed.
A distinguished group of 22 former judges and prosecutors has urged Governor Perry to grant a reprieve while the investigation goes on. As they note, the United States and Texas Constitutions both guarantee defendants the right to due process, which includes a trial before an impartial judge.
"Another test for integrity of justice in Texas," is the title of an Austin American-Statesman editorial from Saturday.
In Texas, our vision of law and order can make us blind to justice. Anyone who has observed Texas courts for any amount of time can cite cases where criminal defendants received punishment meted out on shaky evidence or under dubious circumstances.
Sometimes the state gets it right, and sometimes it just gets its man — regardless of whether it gets it right. Consider the case of Charles Dean Hood, a convicted murderer who was prosecuted by a district attorney who may have been engaged in a clandestine affair with the trial judge.
Hood had been trying to get a hearing on his complaint, but to no avail. Somebody finally listened to him and scheduled a hearing for Sept. 12 — two days after his scheduled execution date.
Fortunately, State District Judge Greg Brewer imposed sanity into the case by moving the hearing date to Monday. Attorney General Greg Abbott added his 11th hour voice to those urging the courts to listen to Hood.
And:
No one is asking that Hood be set free, only that his lawyers be given time to make their argument on a legitimate issue in a court of law.
The state demands jurors be certain of a defendant's guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt. Neither should there be a shadow over a defendant's conviction and sentencing.
"Claim that judge, prosecutor had affair taints murder case,"
The Texas criminal justice system has performed atrociously in the prosecution of Charles Dean Hood, a North Texas man who was found guilty of killing two people in 1989. The question of his guilt has never been challenged, though he claims he is innocent. But there is a great question over the fairness of his prosecution and the bungling of process that has inflicted pain on the families of the victims and unnecessary cruelty on Hood.
"Clear the air in death case," is the Sunday Dallas Morning News editorial.
For weeks, the radioactive murder case careened from courtroom to courtroom, and the ideal of sure and swift justice seemed like a pathetic afterthought. In a chaotic spectacle on June 17, Mr. Hood came within 90 minutes of execution, only to have the warrant withdrawn and reinstated hours later. Prison staff could not squeeze in the execution routine before the midnight deadline, which is the only reason that attorneys can still dissect what was going on in the county courthouse 18 years ago.
Various courts appeared to deflect the core question of judicial corruption until Thursday, when state District Judge Greg Brewer ordered a hearing on the matter. That shows spine.
In any salacious talk of secret trysts, it mustn't be lost that the case stems from the heartless murders of Ronald Williamson and Tracie Lynn Wallace of Plano. A jury found that Mr. Hood was the killer, but the conviction can't involve lingering doubts of a rigged case no matter how clear the evidence of guilt.
Attorney General Greg Abbott said as much in an extraordinary statement last week urging thorough review. Even the most ardent law-and-order Texan must agree with Mr. Abbott that "if the execution proceeds as scheduled, before questions about the fairness of his trial are legally resolved, neither the victims nor justice will be served."
Indeed, if Judge Brewer's fact-finding needed more time, with the execution date looming, Gov. Rick Perry should heed the wisdom expressed in a letter by more than two dozen federal and state judges and prosecutors who urged him to issue a one-time, 30-day reprieve.
"TEXAS DEATH PENALTY: Procedure is crucial," is the Sunday Fort Worth Star-Telegram editorial.
An element of due process missing from the case of Death Row inmate Charles Dean Hood might at last be addressed this week.
After a baffling series of miscues, a Collin County judge is scheduled to decide Monday whether Hood’s attorneys can question Verla Sue Holland and Tom O’Connell under oath about claims that the two were having an affair while he was the district attorney and she was the presiding judge in Hood’s 1990 capital murder trial.
For the second time this year, there will be last-minute scrambling over whether it’s fair for the state to execute Hood, who’s scheduled to die Wednesday.
What a shame all around that the Texas criminal justice system has embarrassed itself again.
Finally, CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen writes, "An Anti-OJ Legal Story."
On Monday, hundreds of journalists and assorted paparazzi will flock to the start of the Las Vegas trial of O.J. Simpson.
The former football star and pitch man (and proven-in-a-civil-trial murderer) is charged with armed robbery and kidnapping in a case about sports memorabilia that is as unimportant as it is well-publicized.
On the same day, hundreds fewer journalists will be in Texas, where a fascinating hearing will be held that could determine the immediate fate of a convicted killer scheduled for execution.
By Monday night, you will almost certainly be inundated with walk-shots of Simpson wandering into court and babbling analysts dissecting the meaning of the start of his jury selection.
But unless you are in Collin County, Texas or its environs, you are quite unlikely to know whether the state courts there were willing and able to halt the execution of Charles Dean Hood for the sole (and quite legitimate) reason that it seems his trial judge and his prosecutor may have been sleeping together at the time of his trial.
Go ahead: It’s okay to play that sound from "Law and Order" in your head right now.
What is wrong with this picture? I cannot begin to tell you. Certainly it is not news to you that what passes for vital legal news these days often is overlooked in favor of what looks pretty, or what can be sensationalized, or what stirs the emotions and passions of talk-show hosts and their overbooked guests.
Earlier coverage begins here.
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