Blog Buzz Over the Hood Case

Adam Liptak's Sidebar column on the Hood case struck a nerve in the blogosphere. 

Michael Landauer posts, "Charles Dean Hood case a dark mark on Collin County justice," at the Dallas Morning News Death Penalty blog.

Bill Baumbach, a blogger in Collin County, has a great post with all sorts of links about the Charles Dean Hood case. You remember, the one where the judge was sleeping with the prosecutor, but no one seems to think that's a problem.

Bill's take:

The O'Connell/Holland 'affair' was no small lapse in morals. The affair itself was merely tawdry, but the lies and deceit that followed were serious violations of ethics and cast grave doubt on the ability of the Collin County Criminal Justice system to actually dispense justice.

Their affair casts doubt, not only on the conviction of Charles Dean Hood, but on unnumbered defendants. Our justice system was badly wounded by these two. Our taxpayers may face a huge financial liability. And there may be innocent people condemned by a process that was, by definition, unfair.

I have been outraged since this story came to light. My outrage is not solely directed at the illicit lovers but at the entire Collin County Bar, and the Judges and the Prosecutors who knew or strongly suspected that there was this unethical relationship between a judge and DA but stood by in silence as defendant after defendant was condemned by this duo.

At the Texas Tribune Morgan Smith posts, "Judges Gone Wild."

The New York Times seems intent on fast-tracking the Texas judiciary’s anointment as the national poster child for judges behaving badly. A Supreme Court appeal has breathed new life into a two-decade old scandal (this one with details a little less banal than a judge’s strict adherence to closing time) and inspired Adam Liptak’s latest legal column.

That would be the “sad and tawdry” affair, reported on by Texas Monthly in 2008, between the judge and the prosecutor in a 1990 death penalty case, where Charles Dean Hood was sentenced to death. The prosecutor, Thomas S. O’Connell Jr., was a man who “never stayed the night” and once gave his judicial paramour a chafing dish as a gift. The judge, Verla Sue Holland, went on to the Court of Criminal Appeals, where she served from 1996 to 2001.

Richard Connelly posts, "Quote Of The Day, From The Judge Who Had An Affair With A Prosecutor," at the Houston Press.

Back in our cub-reporting days, we knew both Judge Verla Sue Holland and prosecutor Tom O'Connell, both Collin County officials, and let us stipulate for the record that we could never, ever imagine them having sex with each other. But apparently they did.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected Hood's plea last year; now he's asking the U.S. Supreme Court to rule. And a bunch of court documents have been filed in that case. The New York Times takes a look at it today and goes completely straight-faced and understated with the quote of the day, if not the year.

It comes from Holland's deposition

In her deposition, Judge Holland said she had lately become angry with Mr. Hood's lawyers for "annihilating my reputation." She said she had asked the attorney general's office to represent her in Mr. Hood's challenge to her conduct because she thought she needed to fight back. She was "tired of laying over," she said, and "getting licked without any input."

Tired of "getting licked without any input"? Most dames complain about the opposite!! HEY-O!!!!!

Above the Law's David Lat posts, "If the judge used to sleep with the prosecutor, is recusal required?"

We previously named Verna Sue Holland, a retired judge from Texas, an Ex-Judge of the Day. Now the ex-judge — or should that be “sex judge” — is back in the news.

Writes Adam Liptak, in the New York Times:

Charles Dean Hood was sentenced to death in 1990 by a Texas judge who had been sleeping with the prosecutor in his case. It took Mr. Hood almost 20 years to establish that fact.

But he finally managed to force the two officials to testify about their rumored affair in the fall of 2008. They admitted it.

Sounds like a conflict of interest that would justify overturning the conviction, right?

Not so fast. Not in Texas.

Texas’s highest court for criminal matters, its Court of Criminal Appeals, considered all of this and concluded that Mr. Hood should be executed anyway. In a 6-to-3 decision in September, the court told Mr. Hood that he had taken too long to raise the issue of whether a love affair between a judge and a prosecutor amounted to a conflict of interest.

Mr. Hood has asked the United States Supreme Court to hear his case. On Thursday, 21 former judges and prosecutors filed a brief supporting him. So did 30 experts in legal ethics.

Question presented: whether a conflict of interest arising out of an affair between a judge and a prosecutor is vitiated if the affair was lousy.

When Gawker picks up a Texas death penalty case, it's a sure sign that dark matter is coalescing in the universe.  The post is, "Prosecutors and Judges May Bone One Another in Texas, No Problem."

The Texas Court of Appeals ruled that a condemned man's execution should go forward even though the judge in his case was sleeping with the prosecutor. And the judge in question has an unintentionally comical rebuke, for her detractors!

Judge Verla Sue Holland has had just about enough of this Death Row inmate, Charles Hood, "assassinating [her] reputation" (he's now appealing to the Supreme Court) just because she sentenced him to death after boning the man prosecuting his case. "She was 'tired of laying over,' she said, and 'getting licked without any input.'" Judge Verla Sue Holland demands input prior to being licked! Go, Texas!

The Seminal at FireDogLake has, "Can Lawyers Adequately Police Themselves?" by: Bill Egnor.  It's a must-read:

“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” Commonly translated as “Who watches the watchmen?” is the heart of the problem we face with in this country in regards to the rule of law. The law, in theory, is supposed to be about balance. This is why our version of Lady Justice is portrayed with scales and a blindfold. The concept is that Justice does not notice who you are, it merely judges the balance between claims.

For this to work, we must have judges and lawyers that adhere to the ideal of legal ethics. Ethics in the law can be summed up in in terms of loyalty; loyalty to the client, loyalty to the law and loyalty to the profession. This is very important as our system of law and justice has at its core the adversarial system.

This system is based on the idea that two advocates, arguing the facts before an impartial judge and or jury will be more likely to arrive at the truth of the matter than any other method. Given this zero sum game (one side wins, one side looses) there needs to be that loyalty to the law and the profession. Without it, there comes a win at any cost mentality, and then the scales of justice get a big thumb put on them.

It didn't escape Kansas City.  The Star's James Hart posts, "Death Row con wants new trial because judge, prosecutor had sex," at the Crime Scene blog.

Adam Liptak of the NYT has a great column about the case of Charles Dean Hood, who was sentenced to death by a judge who was, you know, having sex with the prosecutor. Amazingly, the Texas Supreme Court didn't think this was a big deal and let the man's conviction stand. (This is very broadminded of them, I feel.) The U.S. Supremes are getting ready to look at the case, and several prosecutors and judges have filed a brief supporting the convicted man.

Finally from the blogosphere, L Magazine has, "Texas Death Row Inmate Was Convicted By a Prosecutor Who Had Been Sleeping with the Judge; Has Appeal Overturned Anyway," posted by Mark Asch. 

Adding further credence to the whole "capital punishment cannot be administered in a constitutionally acceptable way" argument is this story out of Texas, state-sanctioned murder capital of America: in 1990, Charles Dean Hood was convicted of capital murder in a court presided over by a judge who had previously had an affair with the prosecutor.

Earlier coverage begins with the preceding post.  All coverage is available through the Charles Dean Hood index.