There are many problems in the Texas death penalty system, but here is one that even we had not heard of before. A judge presiding over a death penalty trial who was making the beast with two backs with the prosecutor. The trial resulted in a death sentence and next week the man is set for execution. The Austin-American Statesman is reporting that:

The capital murder conviction of Charles Dean Hood, who is set to be executed Tuesday, should be overturned because the judge at his 1990 trial was secretly dating the district attorney, an appeal filed Thursday alleged.

Judge Verla Sue Holland, now retired, could not have provided Hood with a fair and impartial trial while involved in a long-term intimate relationship with then-Collin County District Attorney Tom O’Connell, the appeal said. O’Connell played an active role in prosecuting Hood for the double murder that put him on death row.

“The wall of silence that has long protected Judge Holland must now come down,” the appeal said. “An intimate relationship … not only implies a special willingness of the judge to accept the prosecutor’s representations and arguments, but also suggests extensive personal contacts beyond the confines of the courtroom.”

Neither Holland nor O’Connell were married at the time, but they worked to keep the relationship secret, the appeal said.

Last year, we had the shocking case of Judge Sharon Killer saying, “We close at 5” and shuffling off to dinner while a man was executed without having access to her court. Now this. Texas is disgraced again.

More from the Statesman:

Hood’s latest appeal did not attack the facts of the case but focused on the right to a fair trial before an impartial judge.

According to the Texas Constitution, judges cannot sit on cases where they have a personal interest or “where either of the parties may be connected with the judge.”

In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a judge must not only be unbiased, “but also must avoid even the appearance of bias.”

The appearance of irresponsible or improper conduct by judges diminishes public confidence in judicial integrity and breeds skepticism and mistrust, Hood’s appeal argued.

CONTACT GOVERNOR PERRY and tell him to stop the execution of Charles Dean Hood:

In Austin or from out of state: (512) 463-1782
Calling from Texas: (800) 252-9600
Fax: (512) 463-1849
Email: send message from the website:
http://www.governor.statetx.us/contact

The Dallas Morning News yesterday explained again their position favoring abolishing the death penalty in an Ask the Editor post:

For more than a century, this newspaper favored the death penalty. Beginning in 2003 – but, more earnestly, in 2006 — the Editorial Board began to have misgivings. What with DNA technological advances, it was becoming clear that the death penalty wasn’t flawless. That’s why last year – after much debate and soul searching and after Texas authorized the alternative death sentence of prison without parole – we decided to revise our thinking. We simply couldn’t reconcile the fact that the death penalty is both imperfect and irreversible.

Perhaps this reader missed the fuller explanation of our thinking and the process by which we got to our new position. We published a special Points section on April 15, 2007, addressing this change of heart. And we published two additional editorials – “Life without parole should be new standard” and “Texas’ next step” – the next day. This package of editorials – plus a dissenting column from one of our Editorial Board members and a variety of reader reactions, both pro and con – all appeared during these two days. We made clear we’d carefully considered dissenting views. All of these essays – plus the transcript of an online chat I did at the time – are collected at dallasnews.com/deathnomore.

The Texas Democratic Party once again endorsed a moratorium on executions in Texas in the Party platform adopted at last weekend’s state convention. In addition to endorsing a moratorium on executions, the Resolutions Committee at the State Convention also passed a resolution in favor of abolishing the death penalty. The abolition resolution was not brought to the floor of the convention for a vote before the convention adjourned, so it will be referred to the State Democratic Executive Committee’s resolutions committee for further consideration. We will post more on the abolition resolution later.

The section in the party platform dealing with capital punishment was drafted by Scott Cobb, who was a member of the chair’s advisory committee on the platform.

From the 2008 TDP Platform:

Capital Punishment
When capital punishment is used, Texans must be assured that it is fairly administered. Texas Democrats extend our deepest sympathies to all victims of crime and especially to the families of murder victims, and we strongly support their rights. The Texas death penalty system has been severely criticized by religious leaders, appellate courts and major newspapers that have observed that the current system cannot ensure that innocent or undeserving defendants are not sentenced to death. Last year, the Dallas Morning News called for abolition of the death penalty in Texas.

In the modern era, Texas has executed over 400 people, far more than any other state in the nation. The frequency of executions and inadequacies in our criminal justice system increase the likelihoodthat an innocent person will be executed. The State of Texas may have already executed at least two innocent people, according to major newspaper investigations into the cases of Carlos DeLuna and Cameron Todd Willingham. Another inmate, Ernest Willis, was exonerated and released from exas Death Row in 2004 after 17 years of wrongful imprisonment. In order to promote public confidence in the fairness of the Texas criminal justice system, Texas Democrats support the establishment of a Texas Capital Punishment Commission to study the Texas death penalty system and a moratorium on executions pending action on the Commission’s findings.

Texas Democrats support the following specific reforms:
• establishing a statewide Office of Public Defenders for Capital Cases to ensure that every person accused of a capital crime has equal access to well-trained trial and appellate attorneys, regardless of income, race or the county of jurisdiction;
• allowing testing of any possibly exculpatory DNA evidence to ensure guilt or innocence before executions are carried out, and allowing testing of DNA evidence after an execution to determine if an innocent person has been executed;
• establishing procedures to determine before a trial takes place whether an accused has mental retardation, in order to be sure that Texas complies with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ban on executions of people with mental retardation;
• banning death sentences and executions for people with mental illness;
• requiring the Board of Pardons and Paroles to meet in person to discuss and vote on every case involving the death sentence; and
• restoring the power to the Governor to grant clemency in death penalty cases without a recommendation from the Board of Pardons and Paroles

The Houston Chronicle is reporting that

Texas has executed convicted killer Karl Eugene Chamberlain for the rape-slaying of a woman in Dallas 17 years ago, making him the first Texas prisoner in nearly nine months to be put to death in the nation’s most active death penalty state.

Chamberlain, 37, died by injection Wednesday night

This was the first execution in Texas since Sept 25, 2007, and the 406th person executed in Texas since 1982.

Texas’s Court of Criminal Appeals issued rulings on Monday that rejected challenges from five death row inmates to lethal injections there, which also rely on the three-chemical cocktail. Karl Chamberlain, who raped and murdered a 30-year-old woman in 1991, is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday.

The last execution before the de facto moratorium happened in Texas, and it was the subject of controversy. The presiding judge on the Court of Criminal Appeals, Judge Sharon Keller, closed the courthouse at its regular time of 5 p.m. and turned back an attempt from a death row inmate to file appeal papers a few minutes later. The inmate, Michael Richard, was executed that evening.

Opponents of the death penalty in Texas said they had hoped the criticism that followed that episode would inform the court’s decisions on the recent lethal injection challenges.

“Those of us who thought the court was taking a thoughtful and rigorous look at this were wrong,” said David R. Dow of the Texas Defender Service. “I don’t think the court has shown the interest in really developing a coherent body of law, but instead reacts from one decision to the next like a pinball.”

Mr. Chamberlain, scheduled to die on Wednesday, would be the 406th prisoner to be executed in Texas since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

“Texas is still Texas,” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes the death penalty. “They are the ones with the most dates coming up, and by the year’s end, I’m quite confident they will lead the country in executions.”