Trial For Sharon Keller Set For August 17

The Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct has set August 17 as the date to start a trial to determine the outcome of a judicial conduct complaint against Court of Criminal Appeals presiding justice Sharon Keller.

The Statesman has more:

Neither side is willing to entertain a compromise that could derail the trial, which could last a week or longer and help determine whether Keller remains presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

“There is no possibility of Judge Keller accepting anything other than a dismissal of the charges,” said her lawyer, Chip Babcock.

That won’t happen, said Seana Willing, executive director of the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, which charged Keller with improperly closing her court to an after-hours appeal by death row inmate Michael Richard in 2007.His execution later that night made international headlines.

The commission might be willing to accept an agreement that included a public censure of Keller, Willing said. “But I don’t see the judge offering to accept anything that acknowledges misconduct, and that would be the only thing we would consider,” Willing said.

Both sides are conducting discovery under civil court procedures while the commission searches for an Austin courtroom capable of handling the expected crowd. “At least for the first day or so, I imagine the trial will be heavily attended,” Willing said.

Keller is the highest-ranking Texas judge to face this kind of trial. Only three have been held in recent years, all involving county justices of the peace.

As early as today, the Texas Supreme Court will appoint a judge to act as special master to run the trial and issue recommendations to the judicial conduct commission, a 13-member panel composed of six judges appointed by the state Supreme Court, five citizen members named by Gov. Rick Perry, and two lawyers appointed by the State Bar of Texas.

Commissioners can vote to dismiss the charges, publicly reprimand Keller or recommend that she be removed from office.

A reprimand would be appealed to the Texas Supreme Court, Babcock said. A vote to remove Keller from the court, where she has sat since 1994, would be reviewed by a specially formed panel of seven appellate court judges.

During the pretrial discovery phase, Keller will depose three members of the Texas Defender Service, which represented Richard during his final appeals: lawyers David Dow and Gregory Wiercioch and paralegal Rindy Fox.

With Dow in Houston and Wiercioch in California, the lawyers began drafting briefs on Sept. 25, 2007 — Richard’s execution date — based on that morning’s U.S. Supreme Court decision to examine the legality of lethal injection. Shortly before 5 p.m., Fox telephoned the office of the clerk for the Texas criminal appeals court to ask for more time to file because of computer problems.

They were refused, and Richard was executed.

Later, it was revealed that Keller had declined to allow the clerk’s office to stay open past 5 p.m. and did not consult with the court’s other eight judges, creating an uproar that included complaints by prominent Texas lawyers and calls for Keller’s ouster from anti-death penalty factions worldwide.

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