Andrew Cohen on the Hood Ruling

Andrew Cohen has expressed his outrage over the Hood case previously.  His latest comentary on the CCA ruling is, "The State of Texas: Third World Justice," posted at the Atlantic Correspondents blog.

It's been another extraordinarily bad stretch of days for those dwindling few lawyers, judges and politicians who stand ready still to publicly defend Texas's unjust, unkempt, and often unconscionable criminal justice system.

Things are so bad in the Lonsestar State, in fact, that the same officials who doggedly continue to believe "Texas Justice" is anything but an oxymoron-- those who would rather pester their colleagues in Congress for a change in the BCS college football rankings-- perhaps better start preparing for Congressional hearings or even a visit from investigators working for the International Committee of the Red Cross. Third-world justice in America, we all ought to agree, deserves a first-rate response.

First, there is the matter of Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller.  Known as "Killer Keller" to defense attorneys around the country, her cold-hearted abdication of her responsibilities as a jurist in the capital case of Michael Richard has earned her international scorn. She is the judge who left court early one day to meet her repairman knowing that a last-minute appeal was on its way on behalf of Richard. With the court improperly closed, the appeal (on a live issue involving lethal injections) was never heard and Richard was executed. Last week, special state prosecutors pushed again for sanctions or some other punishment for Keller after getting nowhere in an earlier proceeding before one of Keller's judicial colleagues and cronies.

And:

Then, last Thursday, attorneys for Charles Dean Hood were forced to file a petition seeking the intervention of the United States Supreme Court to grant a new trial to a capital defendant whose judge and prosecutors had been secret lovers before his trial. Although a factual review of the circumstances confirmed the relationship, and the fact that neither the judge nor the prosecutor disclosed it to Hood or his attorneys, the state still refuses to order a new trial on the merits. Hood, however, did get some good news this week. On Tuesday, his sentencing hearing was deemed so patently unfair that even the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned it and ordered a new proceeding.

Judges who leave court early for the day without protecting the last-ditch rights of condemned men. Judges who have secret affairs with prosecutors and then don't disclose them to the litigants before them. Prosecutors and judges who continue to fight against DNA testing even when it's the simplest route to the truth of a case. A prison system that tolerates and then covers-up widespread rape of young prisoners. Never mind all this earnest talk of seccession. In many ways, the Texas justice system, unrecognizable and unrepentant, already has left the Union.

Earlier coverage begins with the preceding post; all coverage, available through the Charles Dean Hood index.