Here we are standing in line at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to deliver more than 1500 signatures on the judicial complaint and some personal letters. Photo by Brent Lavelle. More photos here. Here is a link to the excellent report on MyFox Austin.

Hooman Hedayati shot this video.

Today, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed open late accepting letters from the public urging Judge Sharon Keller to resign. On Sept 25, Keller closed the court sharply at 5, saying “We close at five”, but today the court stayed open for business until 5:03 accepting letters urging Keller to resign. This shows how arbitrary the decision was on Sept 25 to close exactly at five. The court stayed open an extra three minutes today with no problem, they could have easily stayed open an extra 20 minutes on Sept 25 to accept an appeal from a man set for execution at 6 pm that day.

Click here to watch an excellent video story of today’s protest from FOX 7 News.

We lined up at the office of the clerk of the court at about ten minutes before five pm to turn in a copy of the judicial complaint signed by more than 1600 people. We also each brought a personally written letter to Keller telling her to resign. Each person stood in line to personally deliver their letter to the clerk. When the clock reached five pm, there were several people still waiting in line. The clock reached 5:01 and 5:02 and still the clerk kept the office open accepting letters. Finally, after the clock had passed 5:03, the clerks stopped accepting letters, left the area and turned off the lights. We asked them to stay open an extra twenty minutes so that everyone could turn in their letter, but they refused. Yet they had already broken the “Keller Rule” by staying open three minutes beyond 5. People who had not yet had a chance to turn in their letters to the clerks left them lying on the counter.

Michael Richard’s sister, Patricia Miller, spoke to the group outside the court after the delivery of the letters and judicial complaint. Watch the video above to hear what she said. Patricia demanded that Keller resign no later than Nov 25.

We shot some of our own video that we will post on YouTube in the next few days.

Please take a moment to send an email to Sharon Keller telling her to resign. Your email will also be sent to Governor Perry, members of the Texas Legislature and the other judges on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

Click here to send Sharon Keller an email telling her to resign.

USA TODAY has a long article in today’s paper about the Sharon Keller controversy, which is coming out one day before the peoples’ protest against Sharon Keller at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

“In hours before last execution, a frenzied legal fight”

By Kevin Johnson

Excerpt:

The defense team’s plans began to unravel about 3:15 p.m., when its computer system crashed at the Houston office of the Texas Defender Service, a privately funded group that specializes in death cases. The system crashed as attorneys were drafting the appeals.

The crash cut off electronic contact between Houston and the Texas Defender Service’s office in Austin, where paralegals and attorneys were standing by to print the required 10 copies of the documents for delivery to the Texas appeals court before its 5 p.m. closing.

Efforts to repair the computer system failed. By 4:30 p.m., Dow says, the defense team in Austin began alerting the clerk at the state Court of Criminal Appeals about the problem, and the likelihood that Richard’s appeal would be late.

Louise Pearson, the court clerk, did not respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment.

Defense attorneys say at least four pleas for more time to file Richard’s appeal were denied — the last at about 4:48 p.m., after attorneys had regained some computer functions. Dow says his team asked the court about filing the appeal electronically. The request was rejected, he says.

“Everybody in the office was outraged,” Dow says.

Less than a half-hour before the scheduled 6 p.m. execution — as the defense team turned to its last option, the Supreme Court — the computer problems flared again.

The lethal-injection appeal took on added importance about 5:30 p.m., when the high court rejected the defense’s mental retardation appeal. Dow says the last-ditch lethal injection appeal to the Supreme Court may have been undermined because the Texas court had never ruled on the issue, leaving no record for the Supreme Court to consider.

As defense attorneys raced to overcome technical problems, Wiercioch says he received an unusual telephone call from Texas Assistant Attorney General Baxter Morgan minutes before the 6 p.m. deadline.

Wiercioch says the attorney general’s office was aware of the problems plaguing the defense team. He says Morgan called to say that the state still planned to proceed with the execution.

“I said, ‘Whoa! Whoa!,’ ” Wiercioch recalls, adding that he pleaded for more time.

Morgan’s response, says Wiercioch: “You’ve got six minutes.”

“It was a stunning conversation,” the defense lawyer says. “It was like I was talking to a robot.”

Strickland, the spokesman for the attorney general’s office, says that “the Texas Defender Service and Greg Wiercioch’s recollection and characterization of the conversation are not accurate.”

Strickland does not specifically dispute that Morgan referred to a six-minute deadline. He says Morgan’s words were mischaracterized as an ultimatum.

“Richard’s counsel knew full well that the execution warrant … would be effective as of 6 p.m.,” Strickland says.

Even so, Strickland says that immediately after the conversation, the attorney general’s office directed prison authorities to suspend the execution until the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in.

Come Deliver the Peoples’ Judicial Complaint Against Judge Keller

Why: Judge Sharon Keller has violated the Judicial Code of Conduct and damaged the integrity of the Texas judiciary. She should resign or be removed from office. On Sept 25, Keller said “We close at 5” and refused to accept an appeal 20 minutes after 5pm from a man set to be executed at 6 pm that day. She did not consult with the duty judge or any other judges on the court before refusing to accept the appeal. Michael Richard was executed on Sept 25, but he would not have been executed that night if Keller had not acted unethically and violated his constitutional rights. Richard was the last person executed in the U.S.before the start of the current de facto moratorium pending the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Baze v. Rees case on the constitutionality of lethal injection as a method of execution.

Date: Friday, Nov 16 at 4:45

Schedule:

4:45 pm Start to gather and get in line to deliver letters urging Keller to resign and the copy of the judicial complaint to the Clerk of the Court.
5:00 The court closes, but we want to have people standing in line with letters to deliver, so that the court is inconvenienced and forced to stay open an extra 20 minutes to serve everyone in line.
5:20 Rally with speakers outside on the Court plaza.

Place: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals,
201 West 14th Street
Austin, Tx

(This is the official address. We will meet on the plaza around the corner facing Congress Ave.)

Action: We will be delivering a copy of a judicial complaint against Sharon Keller signed so far by more than 1300 members of the public.

You can still sign the complaint by clicking here or visiting the website www.SharonKiller.com

We ask that people bring their own personally written letters urging Keller to resign and you can deliver yours to the Clerk of the Court.