Litigation

Impeachment, Condemnation Urged for TX Judge

By Peter Hardin

When a judicial conduct commission gave Texas Judge Sharon Keller a virtual wrist slap over her handling of a last-minute death row appeal, “it could have been worse,” suggests a Houston Chronicle article. Far worse, in fact, judging by recent outcries.

Judge Keller, the state’s top criminal court jurist, was allowed to keep her job after the commission issued one of its less severe sanctions over the judge’s “We close at 5″ response when lawyers for an inmate wanted to submit a last-minute appeal (see Gavel Grab). The inmate was executed a short time later.

Here are some of the other actions weighed, or now recommended, for Judge Keller:

• “The Texas Legislature can help restore integrity to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals by impeaching and removing Keller from office,” urged the Texas Moratorium Network, according to a blog of the Dallas Morning News.
• “State lawmakers can and should pass their own resolution condemning Keller’s actions as unbecoming of the state’s highest-ranking criminal appeals judge,” stated a Dallas Morning News editorial.
• The judicial commission decided against a “public reprimand,” which would have prevented her from serving as a visiting judge after her retirement, the Chronicle reported in its intriguing “Anatomy of a historic wrist slap.”

Judge Keller has pledged an appeal. Her story, and planned appeal, have grabbed national attention. Writes Andrew Cohen in Politics Daily:

“[T]he famously coldhearted judge has become precisely what coldhearted judges  all over the country secretly detest: She’s become a nuisance appellant, a losing litigant who hasn’t yet learned that sometimes it’s just better to quit while you are behind.”

Full post as published by The Gavel on July 22, 2010 (boomark / email).