If you are not a Harris County Criminal Lawyers’ Association member and would like to join in HCCLA’s complaint against Sharon Keller to be filed on Monday, please sign
this form (PDF) and fax it to 832.201.7770.

According to this blog from a Houston attorney, a second complaint against Judge Sharon Keller is in the works. I just heard back from the person who wrote the blog and it is verified. Anyone who wants to sign this second complaint against Keller, lawyers or non-lawyers, should contact Mark Bennett or show up at the location below on Friday, Oct 12.

The Harris County Criminal Lawyers’ Association is going to be filing a complaint against Judge Keller with the Commission on Judicial Conduct on Monday. Tomorrow from about 10:30 a.m. to about noon I will be in the ready room on the 7th floor of the Harris County Criminal Courthouse, 1201 Franklin Street at San Jacinto, with a copy of the complaint for you to sign.

If you know anyone in Houston, let them know about this opportunity to sign the second complaint.

Mark Bennett contact info:

blog: http://www.Defending…

Bennett & Bennett, Lawyers http://www.FightTheF…

(Just lawyers helping people.) http://www.BennettAn…

735 Oxford Street

866.221.8111 (toll-free)

Houston, Texas 77007 USA

713.224.1747 (from Houston and overseas)

832.201.7770 (fax)

The controversy about Judge Sharon Keller has hit the front page of the Houston Chronicle in an article that has former Texas Attorney General Jim Mattox and former Governor (and former Attorney General) Mark White criticizing current Attorney General Greg Abbott. The article says White and Mattox “raised questions about whether Attorney General Greg Abbott should have intervened to stop (Michael) Richard’s execution. The attorney general represents the state in death penalty appeals.”

The article quotes White saying Abbott is an officer of the court and he “should have been obligated to ask for a stay” in the Richard execution.

There was also one other option for stopping the execution after Keller’s unethical decision to close access to Texas’ highest criminal appeals court. Governor Perry could have issued a 30-day stay of execution. The law firm for injury cases can help with all kinds of legalities before it’s too late.

Excerpt from Chronicle article:

Former Gov. Mark White and former Attorney General Jim Mattox, who both fought to enforce the state’s capital punishment laws during their terms as attorney general, said Abbott, as the state’s top lawyer, has a duty to halt executions when they appear to violate an inmate’s due process rights.

White said Abbott is an officer of the court and he “should have been obligated to ask for a stay” in the Richard execution.

Mattox said the attorney general may lack actual legal authority to stop an execution, but the state prison system will follow an attorney general’s order.

Mattox, who witnessed more than 30 executions, said he once ordered an inmate off the execution gurney over prison system protests because he knew the man would receive a stay.

“When the state is all powerful, the state has got to be cautious in how it uses its power,” he said. “Sometimes you do things not to protect the individual but to protect the system itself.”

Mary Alice Robbins, a reporter for Texas Lawyer, who attended yesterday’s press conference at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has a quote from one of the 20 lawyers who filed the complaint:

Broadus Spivey, a former State Bar of Texas president and a partner in Austin’s Spivey & Grigg, is another of the 20 attorneys who joined in filing the complaint. Spivey says in an interview that he was appalled when he read newspaper reports that Keller closed the court’s office before Richard’s attorneys could file the motion for a stay.

“It shows an amazing lack of sensitivity to constitutional rights,” Spivey says. “No matter how guilty a person is, give him a right to be heard.”

In their law practices, Herring and Spivey represent clients in cases involving lawyers’ professional responsibility.

UPDATED Nov 9: Please sign on to our judicial complaint against Sharon Keller. So far, more than 1,300 people have signed. We will mail it to the State Commisson on Judicial Conduct on Friday, November 16, 2007 and also hold a press conference and rally at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals at 4:45 on Nov 16 to call for the resignation of Keller.

SharonKiller.com

End Update:

At today’s press conference, a copy of the judicial complaint against Judge Sharon Keller, filed on behalf of 20 lawyers with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, was distributed to the media. Read it below. It might be easier to read if you download the pdf, instead of reading it below.

Click here to sign on to a judicial complaint against Sharon Keller.

Sharon Keller’s days on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals may be getting shorter. Today, members of Texas Moratorium Network attended a press conference at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals at which it was announced that twenty lawyers from across Texas were filing a formal judicial conduct complaint against Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller, accusing her of violating the constitutional due process of a condemned man. The complaint will be investigated by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, which has the power to discipline Keller, including removing her from office.

The Houston Chronicle is reporting:

The complaint to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct says Keller improperly cut off appeals that led to the execution of Michael Richard on Sept. 25 despite the fact the U.S. Supreme Court earlier in the day had accepted a case on the propriety of lethal injection, which had direct implications for Richard’s execution.

“Judge Keller’s actions denied Michael Richard two constitutional rights, access to the courts and due process, which led to his execution,” the complaint states. “Her actions also brought the integrity of the Texas judiciary and of her court into disrepute and was a source of scandal to the citizens of the state.”

Those lawyers signing the complaint included former State Bar President Broadus Spivey, Houston criminal defense lawyer Dick DeGuerin, University of Houston law professor Mike Olivas, former appellate Judge Michol O’Connor, state Rep. Harold Dutton, D-Houston, and former Nueces County Attorney Mike Westergren.

The lawyers are being represented in the complaint by Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project. Harrington said Keller’s actions were “morally callous, shocking and unconscionable for an appellate judge.”

The commission’s proceedings are secret. At the end, the commission can dismiss a complaint without making it public; publicly reprimand a judge or recommend to the Texas Supreme Court that the judge be removed from office.

At issue is the sequence of events leading up to the execution of Richard, 49, for the 1986 rape and fatal shooting of Marguerite Dixon, a Hockley mother of seven.

Lawyers for Richard had called the court’s clerk, asking that the office stay open an extra 20 minutes so a stay of execution request could be filed. Even if it was denied by the state court, that request was procedurally necessary to get a stay from the Supreme Court.

Keller last week voiced no second thoughts about her actions.

“You’re asking me whether something different would have happened if we had stayed open,” Keller said, “and I think the question ought to be why didn’t they file something on time? They had all day.”

Although other judges at the Texas appeals court were waiting for Richard’s appeal, Keller ordered the clerk to close promptly at 5 p.m. Because of that, Richard’s appeal was not filed and he was executed later in the evening.

Judge Cheryl Johnson was the appeals court jurist in charge of Richard’s case. She said she never heard anything about the clerk’s office closing off the appeal until the following day.

“I wasn’t consulted,” Johnson said. “I have been here almost nine years. My understanding was that on a death case we were here up until the time of the execution and we would take filings that came in up until 6 o’clock and the execution is underway.”

Johnson said it is not a question of whether Richard is guilty but did he have the right to appeal.