Time to start the final countdown for Sharon Keller’s time on the bench. Will she resign or be removed by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, which will have a hearing on her case on June 18 in response to the complaints filed against her that she has brought discredit to the Texas judiciary by closing the doors of justice to a late appeal by a man set for execution, including one filed by Texas Moratorium Network that was signed by about 1900 people.

Today, she was fined $100,000 in a complaint separate from the ones filed with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. The fine today comes from the Texas Ethics Commission and has to do with her failure to report income and property holdings.

From the Austin American-Statesman:

Sharon Keller, presiding judge of the state’s highest criminal court, has been fined $100,000 by the Texas Ethics Commission for failing to fully report her income and property holdings on annual personal financial statements.

It was the largest civil penalty imposed by the commission, according to Tim Sorrells, deputy general counsel for the agency.

The statements for 2006 and 2007 failed to list eight properties, valued at around $2.8 million; between 100 and 499 shares of stock; income from rents, interest and dividends totaling $183,000 over the two years; 20 certificates of deposit; and one money market fund, according to a commission order.

Keller also failed to list her participation on five board or executive positions and almost $10,000 in honorariums, the commission said.

Keller’s failure to fully list her properties, largely in the Dallas area, were revealed in articles by the Dallas Morning News and prompted the left-of-center watchdog group Texans for Public Justice to file a complaint with the ethics commission in March 2009.

A month later, Keller filed corrected versions of her financial statements, saying she inadvertently omitted certain holdings.

The commission gave Keller, top judge on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, until Aug. 10 to pay the $100,000 penalty.

The “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” TV series tackled the Todd Willingham case last night. That is the second TV series in a month that has aired a fictionalized episode based on the Willingham case. The Texas Forensic Science Commission is taking a go-slow, cover-up approach to investigating the Willingham case, but not prime time popular TV.

In March, Cold Case had an episode that was also similar to the Willingham case.

Law and Order SVU’s episode last night looked even more similar to the Willingham case, especially the character of the arson investigator who looked a lot like Gerald Hurst. Sharon Stone was in last night’s episode playing a prosecutor.

One character missing from the TV treatments so far is a character based on Todd Willingham’s crazily unethical defense lawyer David Martin who went on CNN last year a couple of times in a cowboy hat drawling about how he thought Willingham was guilty. After his appearances on national TV, he was criticized by other lawyers, one of whom said “his statements are the most irresponsible, unethical, improper I have ever heard from the mouth of a criminal defense lawyer. Outrageously wrong. Utterly disgraceful.”

We can’t wait for the TV show that features both David Martin and the real life prosecutor in the Willingham case, John Jackson, who is now a judge.

Judge John Jackson also went on CNN and made some very disturbing comments, claiming that Willingham was likely a devil worshipper because he liked heavy metal music. Judge Jackson even made the bizarre, absurd statement that he believes the burn patterns on the floor appear to be in the shape of a pentagram, which Jackson sees as more evidence that Willingham was likely to be a devil worshipper.

The CBS show “Cold Case” recently ran an episode entitled “Flashover” that was loosely based on the Todd Willingham case. In the episode, a man is sent to prison for life for an arson that killed his two young children. Instead of being executed, he is killed in prison by other inmates. Evidence turns up that he did not set the arson.

Sign the email petition to urge the Texas Forensic Science Commission to hold public meetings of the Committee Investigating the Todd Willingham case. Right now, the meetings are being held in secret behind closed doors.

Below are a few short clips of the “Flashover” episode. The full episode is not online. If you are reading this on Facebook or in an email, click here to see the episode clips on the TMN blog.

Link to clip on CBS.

Link to clip on CBS.

Link to clip on CBS.

Link to Clip on CBS.

Promo of show from YouTube.

A Texas inmate was executed Tuesday evening for fatally stabbing an illegal immigrant during an attempted robbery a dozen years ago. 

Samuel Bustamante, 40, said nothing, shaking his head when asked by the warden if he wanted to make a final statement. He took several nearly inaudible breaths as the lethal drugs took effect, then slipped into unconsciousness as four female friends he invited to the death chamber watched. 

Eight minutes later, at 6:22 p.m. CDT, he was pronounced dead, making him the seventh prisoner executed this year in the nation’s most active death penalty state.

No friends or relatives of his victim were present. 

Bustamante was convicted of the 1998 slaying of Rafael Alvarado, 27, a Mexican national in Fort Bend County, southwest of Houston, who became a target of what Bustamante and some of his friends called “shopping trips” where they would hunt illegal immigrants, then beat and rob them. 

The punishment came about 90 minutes after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a last-ditch appeal from Bustamante’s attorneys. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal court, had refused a similar appeal Monday. The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles also declined a clemency request.

The Dallas Morning News has an editorial today saying that the Texas Forensic Science Commission should hold public meetings of all of its committees, including the committee dealing with the Todd Willingham investigation.

We agree and after last Friday’s meeting, Texas Moratorium Network started an online petition to allow the public to contact FSC Chair John Bradley and other members of the Commission to urge them to hold public meetings.

Click here to sign the petition, which sends an email to the Commission every time someone signs.

Today’s DMN Editorial:

The Texas Forensic Science Commission has taken a step forward and then tap-danced behind a cloud of secrecy under the leadership of new Chairman John Bradley.

Disturbing philosophy

“I don’t think that is in the best interest of trying to move forward on this, because the ability to discuss and resolve these issues requires us to have those discussions in private. … All of our issues will be released publicly during full commission meetings.”

–John Bradley, chairman of the Texas Commission on Forensic Science, when asked about keeping committee meetings open

What’s The Big Story? Find out atdallasnews.com/opinion

Blog: Opinion

Blog: Texas Death Penalty

Meeting Friday for just the second time since Bradley was named in September, the commission resumed work on the four-year-old complaint filed in the Cameron Todd Willingham execution case.

That made good Bradley’s promise to state lawmakers to advance the matter. He also should get credit for asking those commissioners who have been working two-plus years on the case to fully air their opinions.

None disagreed that much more information is needed beyond the searing critique from eminent arson scientist Craig Beyler.

Just how – and how much – information should be gathered is a matter of keen public interest, but Bradley wants the initial course to be charted in private.

That’s an awful approach.

Everyone knows the Beyler report is a potential political grenade. In a report to the commission last summer, Beyler said state and local investigators ignored sound scientific techniques in concluding that arson caused the 1991 fire that killed Willingham’s three daughters in their Corsicana home. Convicted of murder, Willingham was executed in 2004 – Rick Perry, governor.

Commissioners say they need to study a range of documents, including the full transcript of the trial, in which state and local arson investigators testified. Commissioners said they have questions for Beyler and probably for other experts.

Nearly all of the nine commissioners are scientists, and they should pursue the evidence they need. Their job is not to reconsider the verdict against Willingham, but to determine whether junk science was part of his trial.

The matter is now before a four-person committee that Bradley formed to guide the Willingham case. Bradely, the district attorney of Williamson County, named one defense attorney to the committee, which achieves balance. But limiting membership to four means the committee isn’t a commission quorum and, therefore, doesn’t trigger an open-meetings requirement.

Secret meetings run contrary to a basic principle of public service. State law and the Texas Constitution give some investigatory bodies authority to conduct business confidentially. The State Commission on Judicial Conduct is one. The forensics commission, however, is not.

Nowhere did lawmakers give the commission that latitude when they created it in 2005. Procedures the commission adopted in January are silent on the matter. Some commissioners said after Friday’s meeting that they were surprised that committee sessions would be done in secret.

When Perry installed Bradley and three other new members last fall, critics hatched the theory that the governor wanted the Willingham matter frozen until after the 2010 election. Bradley has said he didn’t accept Perry’s appointment to be somebody’s puppet, and we’ll accept that at face value. At the same time, though, he must see that public confidence is at stake. The way to preserve that is to conduct state business where the state can see it.

“I don’t think that is in the best interest of trying to move forward on this, because the ability to discuss and resolve these issues requires us to have those discussions in private. … All of our issues will be released publicly during full commission meetings.”

–John Bradley, chairman of the Texas Commission on Forensic Science, when asked about keeping committee meetings open