Texas Court of Criminal Appeals: Ballot offers little hope for troubled courtThree seats on the court are up for election, and major change is needed. Unfortunately, most of the choices are poor.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
The Court of Criminal Appeals should be a showcase of Texas justice. Instead, it has become a national embarrassment. It's time for a change but, unfortunately, voters have a good choice in only one of the court's three seats being contested in the Nov. 4 election.
The nine-member court is the state's highest appeals panel for criminal cases, and it automatically reviews all death penalty convictions.
Not surprisingly in a state as conservative as Texas, the Court of Criminal Appeals is stocked heavily with judges with prosecutorial backgrounds and attitudes. Defendants who challenge their convictions face a skeptical group of judges.
But too often too many of the judges on this court are not just skeptical, but indifferent, even hostile, to the appeals they are charged to hear. At times, they appear to go out of their way to uphold a conviction and avoid a new trial.
The most recent example was the scheduled execution of Charles Dean Hood that the court stopped only at the last minute. Hood had been convicted of murder in 1990, and the evidence against him was strong.
The Court of Criminal Appeals in June rejected an appeal from Hood's lawyers for time to explore unconfirmed reports of a relationship between Hood's prosecutor and the trial judge. But a lower court order finally forced the judge and prosecutor to testify under oath.
Having seen the relationship apparently confirmed, the Court of Criminal Appeals in September then halted the execution — but found other grounds for granting the appeal that it had previously rejected.
By the way, the trial judge in question, Verla Sue Holland, served on the Court of Criminal Appeals from 1997 to 2001.
And then there was last year's Michael Richard case, in which a death row inmate was executed shortly after Presiding Judge Sharon Keller refused to accept a last-minute appeal because it came in shortly after closing time, 5 p.m. This was not a frivolous appeal; it was based on a ruling that morning by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The three seats up for election are:
Place 3. Republican incumbent Tom Price, 63, of Richardson is one of the more moderate members of this court.
But the need for bracing change is so strong that voters would do well to support the Democratic candidate, Susan Strawn, 46, of Houston, a former federal prosecutor.
The court, Strawn says, doesn't do its job of critically reviewing death penalty appeals but leaves that to the federal court system. And, she says, at times the judges on the state court "appear to be at war with the (U.S.) Supreme Court."
Place 4. Paul Womack, 61, of Georgetown was fined $20,500 by the Texas Ethics Commission after his 2002 election for failing to file seven campaign finance reports. His initial reason for this failure was that he might have attention deficit disorder and a problem with procrastination.
Unfortunately, his Democratic challenger is J.R. Molina, 63, a Fort Worth lawyer who has run before but is never seen on the campaign trail.
Neither is fit to hold the office, so we're not going to recommend the least lousy choice. Neither agreed to sit down with American-Statesman editorialists.
Dave Howard, 57, of Round Rock is the Libertarian Party candidate on the ballot.
Place 9. The Republican incumbent is Cathy Cochran, 63, of Austin, who faces no Democratic challenger. The Libertarian Party candidate in this race is William Strange, 60, of Dallas.
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