Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> StandDown Texas Project

Criminal Law

: StandDown Texas Project

More on the Charles Dean Hood Case

By Steve Hall

Jordan Smith writes, "New Hearing for Death Row Inmate," in the current issue of the Austin Chronicle.What still remains to be answered is whether Hood should receive a brand new trial in his case ? a question pending in an application before the U.S. Supreme Court. At issue is whether Hood's right to due process was violated by the fact that the judge sitting over his trial, former CCA Judge Verla Sue Holland, had been engaged in a long-time intimate sexual relationship with Hood's prosecutor, Thomas O'Connell Jr. This, Hood's defenders allege, is a clear conflict of interest and should require that Hood receive a new trial. Holland and O'Connell finally admitted the affair after being forced to testify about it when being deposed in 2008...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on March 05, 2010 (boomark / email).