Twenty Texas lawyers have joined in a complaint to be filed with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct against Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller for closing the CCA clerk's office at 5 p.m. on Sept. 25, preventing an inmate's attorneys from filing an emergency request to stay his execution.
Within hours after the CCA closed its doors, the state executed Michael Richard for a 1986 murder. The U.S. Supreme Court had agreed earlier in the day that Richard was executed to consider a Kentucky case, Baze v. Rees, regarding whether the lethal injection method of execution constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
From here via How Appealing.
A petition to suspend the judge from the practice of law is also expected. I'm not an expert in death penalty litigation and can't fathom why the U.S. Supreme Court didn't include a stay of execution issued in its own right with its ruling.
A long history of cases out of the Court of Criminal Appeals has shown that Texas Court to be a disgrace to civilized justice.
I also have serious doubts about the ethics of the of individuals in the Texas Attorney General's office and department of corrections that allowed this execution to proceed given the circumstances.
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