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Ardor in the Court - More on the Plano HoodWink

By standdown

"Ardor in the court," is the title of Alan Berlow's latest at Salon.com, another spotlight shined on the Charles Hood case.Rarely in the annals of criminal justice does a conflict of interest get more sordid or have greater consequences than this. Charles Dean Hood is scheduled to be executed in Texas on Tuesday morning. In 1990, when he was on trial for capital murder in the Dallas suburbs, the presiding judge who imposed that death sentence and the local prosecutor who was trying to have Hood put to death had been involved in a "long-term intimate relationship." That's according to papers filed by Hood's attorneys in two Texas courts Thursday. Hood's lawyers allege that Texas state court Judge Verla Sue Holland had a "personal and direct interest in the outcome of the case," and was disqualified from trying the case under the Texas Constitution because of her ongoing affair with Collin County District Attorney Tom O'Connell...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on June 13, 2008 (boomark / email).