June 24
TEXAS----female faces death penalty
Prosecutors seek death penalty for woman ---- Capital murder case is a 1st
in Nueces County
The upcoming capital murder case of Maria Rivas is a 1st for prosecutor
Gail Gleimer and Nueces County.
"This is the 1st time in the history of this county that we've ever sought
the death penalty for a woman," said District Attorney Carlos Valdez.
Gleimer said Rivas' gender was not a factor in their decision to seek the
death penalty.
"It doesn't mean anything to me. We make those decisions based on the
crimes they commit - not on gender, race or things of that nature,"
Gleimer said.
Rivas, 29, is charged with capital murder in the death of Liberty County
resident James Timothy Haynes, 44. Haynes was found dead in March 2004 in
the 2400 block of West Broadway, on the city's Northside, slumped over his
truck's steering wheel after a fight with Leonard Ray Haskins, 21.
Earlier this month, a jury convicted Haskins of capital murder and
sentenced him to life in prison.
Prosecutors said Rivas supplied the knife to Haskins and was a
co-conspirator in the crime.
"She would be a continuing threat to the community," Valdez said. "That's
why we're seeking the death penalty."
Rivas is represented by Grant Jones, former Nueces County district
attorney. Jones said he never asked for the death penalty against a female
defendant while he was in office.
"I know it's very uncommon in Texas. We're getting ready for this
particular unique case," Jones said.
If found guilty, Rivas faces life in prison with the possibility of parole
after 40 years or death by lethal injection.
A jury panel was called in Wednesday, with selection set for Aug. 8.
Testimony is scheduled for Aug. 22 before 117th State District Court Judge
Sandra L. Watts.
Of the 440 inmates on death row in Texas, 9 are women, according to the
Texas Department of Criminal Justice Web site.
*****************************
Family in shock after killer's death sentence commuted
A grandfather is in shock after learning that the killer of his 2
granddaughters has had his death sentence commuted. He thinks that man
should remain on death row.
The girls were victims of the so-called yogurt shop murders which happened
in Austin back in December 1991. They were among 4 girls found dead inside
this burned out yogurt shop back then. They had been shot, raped and 1
young girl was even strangled.
Nearly 10 years later, 2 men were convicted for the crimes one received a
life sentence. The other - Robert Springsteen received the death penalty.
That death sentence was commuted to life in prison yesterday because of a
Supreme Court ruling banning the death penalty for anyone was under 18
when the crime was committed. Springsteen was 17 when he was originally
arrested.
This news comes as a shock for don Harbison of Bishop. He's grandfather of
2 of the victims. 15-year-old Sarah and 17-year-old Jennifer Harbison were
simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sarah and a friend were
helping Jennifer and another employee shut down this yogurt shop.
"So the boys were surprised to see 4 girls, but they did say the leader of
the gang said we will have no witnesses. They intended to kill the girls
when they went in there," said Don Harbison. When Springsteen was
sentenced to death in June 2001, Harbison felt he was getting what he
deserved.
It's been tough for Harbison to handle the news that the sentence has been
commuted to life after his two innocent granddaughters were violently
taken away.
"Surprised, yes but actually when they started talking about these 17 year
olds, I figured it was coming. We didn't like it at all, we're not
satisfied with it, but life imprisonment is pretty rough." Pictures and
other mementos of his granddaughters have helped Don Harbison cope with
their loss, but now he's afraid if Springsteen is ever paroled - another
family could suffer the same loss he's gone through.
"We've found through the past that many of these people turned loose off
of death row kill again. It's just in their blood." The girls were active
in things like cheerleading, volleyball and Future Farmers of America and
that's the way the family wants them to be remembered. Not simply victims
of a senseless crime.
"Never, never forget them. That's what that Cap says, never ever want to
forget." Dan Harbison said his son Mike the father of the two little girls
is taking the news extremely hard.
Dan said his son is not taking phone calls after hearing the news. He was
also very down after a book was released earlier this year detailing the
brutal killing. The girls' father has tried to make some positive come out
of this bad situation. He donated money to set up an Austin library in
memory of his daughters.
(source for both: KRIS 6 News)
***********************
Local murderer escapes death penalty -- Governor commutes sentence for man
convicted in 2001 deaths of father, baby girl
An Hidalgo County death row inmate convicted of the 2001 murder of a young
father and his baby daughter will serve a life sentence instead of dying
by lethal injection because he was 17 at the time of the crime.
Jorge Alfredo Salinas, now 21, is one of 28 Texas death row inmates whose
sentences Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday commuted to life in prison in
compliance with a March U.S. Supreme Court ruling that juveniles cannot be
executed.
In that ruling, the Supreme Court banned the practice of lethal injection
for criminals under 18, ruling that executing juveniles violates the
Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
On July 28, 2001, Salinas and two other men shot 20-year-old Geronimo
Morales in a carjacking and left Morales 21-month-old daughter, Leslie Ann
Morales, strapped in her car seat in a grassy area outside Mission. The
girl died of dehydration and exposure.
A jury found Salinas guilty of capital murder in Judge Noe Gonzalezs 370th
state District Court and sentenced him to die for the murders. Salinas has
been on death row since Aug. 29, 2002.
Assistant District Attorney Joseph Orendain, who prosecuted Salinas, said
Salinas inflicted a "cruel and unusual" punishment on Leslie Ann Morales,
leaving her to die alone in the South Texas brush.
"That was cruel and unusual, but that didnt stop him from doing it. They
had so many options with Leslie," Orendain said, as the men could have
left the baby where someone could have found her. "Where they left her,
they left her to die."
He noted that Salinas tried to escape from his 2002 trial and attempted to
carjack a vehicle when a bailiff caught him.
In 2004, Salinas allegedly stabbed a prison guard 13 times with a
sharpened metal rod made from a typewriter. Orendain said prosecutors now
want to seek aggravated assault charges or attempted capital murder
charges to lengthen Salinas sentence. A special prosecutor from the prison
inmate system would have to try the case, he said.
District Attorney Rene Guerra said he does not think the death penalty
should apply to those under 18, but was willing to seek the punishment in
Salinas case.
"Hes a dangerous criminal. Thats why the death penalty was imposed on
him," Guerra said.
Still, Guerra agrees with the Supreme Court and believes Salinas will
never get parole.
"For him to spend life imprisoned - it's like the death penalty," he said.
"The law is not going to be changed to give him an early out. The system
will not allow it.
"The parole board is very leery about letting a very dangerous person come
out."
Perry also signed the commutation for an inmate from Cameron County.
Jose Ignacio Monterrubio was 17 years old when he and his older cousin
Sixto Monterrubio raped, beat, stabbed and then strangled a female
classmate from Brownsville Rivera High School in September 1993. The two
then buried 16-year-old Carla Villarreal in a shallow grave near the
Brownsville airport. Her body was found 1 month later.
Sixto Monterrubio was sentenced to life in prison. Under state law, Jose
Ignacio Monterrubio was tried as an adult and received a death sentence in
October 1994.
As one of 18 states that executed juveniles, the Texas Department of
Criminal Justice will now begin transferring the inmates affected by the
ruling from death row at the Polunsky Unit outside Livingston.
(source: The Monitor)
************************************
Death sentence ban affects two in Randall County ---- Men convicted of
murder before they were 18 will trade death sentence for life in prison
Gov. Rick Perry has commuted the death sentences of 28 death row inmates,
including 2 men convicted of capital murder in Randall County.
Perry, faced with a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling banning the death
penalty for killers under the age of 18, issued the commutations
Wednesday. Inmates whose sentences were affected by the decision will
serve life in prison, but also will be eligible for parole.
"While these individuals were convicted by juries of brutal murders and
sentenced to die for their heinous crimes, I have no choice but to commute
these sentences to life in prison as a result of the Supreme Court
ruling," Perry said in a statement.
Last week, Perry signed a bill that will give juries the option of
sentencing defendants convicted of capital murder to life without parole.
Oswaldo Soriano was 17 when he and another man, Hector Medina Porras,
robbed the Toot'n Totum at 3609 S. Washington St., on Nov. 17, 1992.
Testimony at Soriano's trial showed that Soriano gunned down clerk Gordon
William Rutledge, 59. Soriano and Porras were convicted of capital murder
in the slaying. Porras received a life sentence, but Soriano was sentenced
to death.
Justin Wiley Dickens also was 17 when he shot Francis Allen Carter, 50, a
Clayton, N.M., school teacher during a botched robbery attempt at
Mockingbird Jewelry & Pawn, 3608 Mockingbird Lane, on March 12, 1994.
The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously recommended that Perry
commute the sentences of the 28 death row inmates after the Supreme Court
ruled 5-4 on March 1 to ban the execution of criminals who were younger
than 18 when they committed their crimes.
The decision, which overturned a 1989 high court ruling, tossed out the
death sentences of 72 murderers who committed their crimes as juveniles
and bars states from seeking to execute others.
Nineteen states, including Texas, had allowed death sentences for killers
who committed their crimes when they were under 18.
The executions, the court said, violate the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel
and unusual punishment.
"The age of 18 is the point where society draws the line for many purposes
between childhood and adulthood. It is, we conclude, the age at which the
line for death eligibility ought to rest," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote.
Randall County Criminal District Attorney James Farren earlier called the
justices' decision sophomoric and silly.
"We don't have to draw a line," Farren said. "We can evaluate each case
for the maturity of the defendant and the evidence of future
dangerousness. Age does not equal maturity."
Farren said Soriano and Dickens likely will be eligible for parole soon.
Farren said the decision disregards the deliberations of jurors who
evaluate each case and give the death penalty if appropriate.
"They don't just crank out death penalties," Farren said. "They look at it
on a case-by-case basis and not simply based on a date of birth."
Current state law prohibits seeking the death penalty for those younger
than 17. The high court's decision adds those who are 17.
Potter County has no cases affected by the court's ruling.
In an angry dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia disputed that a "national
consensus" exists and said the majority opinion was based on the
"flimsiest of grounds." The appropriateness of capital punishment should
be determined by individual states, not "the subjective views of 5 members
of this court and like-minded foreigners," he wrote.
The ruling quickly affected one closely watched murder case that grabbed
national attention.
In Prince William County, Va., officials said they will not prosecute a
murder case against teen sniper Lee Boyd Malvo, who already is serving
life in prison in 2 of the 10 sniper killings that terrorized the
Washington area in 2002.
(source: Amarillo Globe-News)
***************************
No discrimination
As though anyone thought it hadn't spoken clearly enough before, the
Supreme Court on Monday re-emphasized that the Constitution does not
condone racial discrimination in the selection of criminal trial juries.
The ruling might be difficult for some to accept because it means that
Death Row inmate Thomas Miller-El could receive a new trial. Almost 20
years ago, he robbed a Dallas County Holiday Inn at gunpoint, fatally shot
clerk Douglas Walker and grievously wounded Donald Hall.
But it's fundamental in this country that even those who commit the most
brutal crimes are entitled to fair court proceedings. It's essential if
the criminal justice system is to work for all involved -- victims,
criminals and society at large.
Miller-El did not receive that fairness, the court said in its 6-3
decision, because prosecutors improperly excluded blacks from the jury at
his 1986 trial.
Just 2 years ago, the justices had concluded that Miller-El was entitled
to a new hearing on his claims of racial discrimination, which had been
rejected by the trial court in his case, the Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals and lower federal courts.
After a new hearing, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Miller-El
failed to show that the trial court's ruling against him was wrong.
However, in an opinion by Justice David Souter, the Supreme Court said the
appellate ruling was "unsupportable" based on the evidence.
Among other things, the majority said, prosecutors questioned blacks more
extensively than whites to elicit misgivings about the death penalty;
accepted whites for the jury who gave answers similar to those given by
blacks who were rejected; and asked that the jury panel be shuffled,
apparently to move blacks to the back of the group, where they were less
likely to be needed.
The justices also noted that the Dallas County district attorney's office
in the 1960s and '70s deliberately excluded minorities from juries.
"It is true, of course, that at some points the significance of
Miller-El's evidence is open to judgment calls, but when this evidence on
the issues raised is viewed cumulatively its direction is too powerful to
conclude anything but discrimination," Souter wrote.
District Attorney Bill Hill, whose staff is reviewing its next step in the
case, said in a statement that his office "will not tolerate illegal
discrimination" in jury selection by prosecutors or defense lawyers.
Neither will the Constitution.
***********************************
Drawing lines
If the U.S. Supreme Court reflects the nation's thinking in any polarized
area, surely it's on the death penalty.
As rulings this term and last have reflected, the justices are sharply
divided on the scope of procedural protections required by the
Constitution when the government seeks to impose capital punishment.
But even though the court over the past decade has tightened some rules
for pursuing appeals and has made it somewhat easier for states to execute
killers, there still must be limits.
A majority -- albeit an occasionally shifting one -- holds fast on
demanding that prosecutors, defense lawyers and state and federal courts
pay careful attention to fairness and due process even in cases involving
defendants who have committed horrendous crimes.
The most recent example came Monday when the court, by a 5-4 vote, ordered
resentencing for a Pennsylvania death row inmate because his trial lawyers
failed to review a court file about his criminal background that they knew
prosecutors planned to use in arguing for a death sentence.
That followed a pair of June 13 rulings in capital cases from Texas (a 5-4
vote) and California (8-1) requiring new trials because of racial bias
during jury selection.
And in March, the court -- again voting 5-4 -- ruled that the
Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment prohibits states from
executing killers who committed their crimes while younger than 18.
In 2004, the justices returned two capital cases to Texas because trial
courts didn't let jurors properly consider mitigating evidence such as the
defendants' learning disabilities. And the sentence of a long-time Death
Row inmate was thrown out because prosecutors had withheld crucial
information that could have called their witnesses' credibility into
question.
The implicit message was that Texas and federal courts reviewing death
penalty appeals needed to take a harder look at claims of constitutional
violations.
It doesn't appear that the Supreme Court is anywhere near reconsidering
whether capital punishment is constitutional in most cases. And a minority
of the justices -- usually Chief Justice William Rehnquist and colleagues
Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas -- tend to take a hard line when the
killings are particularly brutal.
Still, a majority seems determined to draw lines beyond which the Eighth
Amendment's standards of decency, as they see them, won't let them let
states go.
In the Pennsylvania case, Justice David Souter wrote that the trial
lawyers' mistake was "sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome"
of the sentencing.
And that ultimately is the crux: When the state takes a life as
punishment, the system only works if the public is confident that justice
is, in fact, being done.
(source for 2 above: Opinion, Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
**********************
Justice must not be blin----Defendants must be guaranteed fair trial
The U.S. Supreme Court has finally busted the Death State, Texas, proving
that the anti-death penalty crowd is not made up of paranoid conspiracist
apologists for criminals. That the issue of race is deeply embedded in the
administration of the death penalty in Texas could not be denied by even a
supposedly conservative-leaning court.
What's more startling than a decisive 6-3 vote, reversing the conviction
of Thomas Miller-El, who was convicted and sentenced to death by a jury of
11 whites and one black, was the insistence upon the dissenters --
Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and William Rehnquist -- that racism is a
thing of the distant past. Well, it is that. But it is also a thing of the
less distant past -- and of the present.
In the Texas case decided last week, the Supreme Court ruled that, as
Miller-El had maintained, the jury selection process was tainted by racial
discrimination. Texas prosecutors took extra measures to assure that
blacks were eliminated from the jury. 10 of the 12 blacks in the jury pool
were dismissed. Texas courts found the prosecutors' explanations
"completely credible and sufficient." The Supreme Court, though, found
those explanations "so far at odds with the evidence that pretext is the
fair conclusion, indicating the very discrimination the explanations were
meant to deny."
Those tactics remind me of my summer as an intern for Team Defense in
Georgia in the 1970s. One of my tasks was to find ways to educate rural
blacks about surviving prosecutors' questions so that they might be chosen
to serve as jurors in capital cases. Part of that included my "preaching"
from rural pulpits about what to expect, including aggressive questioning
about whether they believed in the Bible and the 10 Commandments,
especially "Thou shalt not kill." If they said yes, they, unlike whites,
were likely dismissed.
The 1970s might seem the distant past to a child, but to judges of the
maturity to sit on the courts that have ruled on the case of Miller-El
since 1986, the '70s were just the other day.
I do not believe in capital punishment. But if states insist upon
retaining this option, they must guarantee defendants receive fair trials.
That means doing something that so far has been impossible: eliminating
racism from the criminal justice process from arrest to sentencing.
When hell freezes over, that might happen.
(source: Opinion, E.R. Shipp, New York Daily News)
**************************************
Ardor in the court----When the judge and prosecutor involved in a capital
case are sleeping together, can the defendant possibly get a fair trial?
Meet Charles Dean Hood, on Texas' death row.
Here's a not very tough question of legal ethics to ponder over the
morning coffee: Let's say you're on trial for murder, and the judge and
the prosecutor in your case have been having an affair. Is it possible for
you to get a fair trial?
In the case of Charles Dean Hood, the short answer is, "Don't bet your
life on it."
Hood, who was sentenced to death for a 1989 double murder, is scheduled to
be executed by the state of Texas on June 30. Unfortunately for Hood, in
the 15 years since he arrived on death row, the issue of the strange and
not-so-secret relationship of State District Court Judge Verla Sue Holland
and Collin County District Attorney Tom O'Connell has never been raised in
a single state or federal court.
Now, it should be stated at the outset that the private affairs of public
officials, including extra-marital relations, should under all but the
most extraordinary circumstances remain solely the business of the parties
involved.
But when a person is charged with a serious crime and his life hangs in
the balance, such a private relationship may well become a matter of
public interest, because the public has a right to know that the judicial
process that prosecutors and judges swear to uphold will not be
compromised.
Hood was convicted in August 1990 of the brutal murders of his boss Ronald
Williamson, 46, and Williamson's girlfriend, Tracie Wallace, 26. Hood
worked as Williamson's bodyguard. Both victims were shot at close range in
the head. Hood's bloody fingerprints were found at the crime scene.
Although Hood's trial left a welter of unanswered questions -- about a
possible accomplice, the motive for the killings, Hood's mental state, and
the quality of Hood's representation, to name just a few -- there is
little doubt that the state could easily have won a conviction of Hood by
assigning a prosecutor whose presence in the courthouse would not raise a
question of unethical conduct.
But it didn't. And that was a decision made by District Attorney Tom
O'Connell when he didn't reveal the nature of his relationship to the
judge.
Why O'Connell would have risked jeopardizing what had to have looked like
a slam-dunk conviction over questions about his personal life is not at
all clear, unless he was fairly confident that no one would dare to
challenge him. O'Connell, who has since retired from public service, did
not respond to phone calls seeking comment.
For her part, Judge Holland refused to either confirm or deny the alleged
relationship with O'Connell, insisting that it would be "unethical to
comment" on a pending case. Asked if it was also unethical to try a case
in which she had been romantically involved with the prosecutor, the judge
said, "I'm not going to comment on anything, and I resent the fact that
you're calling." Judge Holland, who served on the Collin County court for
15 years before being elected to the state criminal appeals court, has
since retired.
The Collin County District Attorney's Office, where O'Connell served for
more than a decade, also refused to respond to written questions, as did
John Schomburger, the assistant district attorney who prosecuted Hood with
O'Connell.
Close friends of the late Earl Holland, who was married to Verla Sue
Holland for 17 years, say there is no question that she and O'Connell had
an ongoing, intimate relationship that began while she was married to
Earl, a prominent banker active in local Republican politics. Friends of
Holland, who died earlier this year, insist that he told them the affair
was the precipitating factor in his decision to file for divorce.
"I am 100 % sure that there was an affair," said one woman who refused to
be named. This source recounted having listened to tape recordings Earl
Holland obtained of conversations between the judge and O'Connell that
provided irrefutable evidence that the 2 were intimately involved. Earl
Holland had collected an entire "shoe box" of these recordings, she said,
but she did not know how he obtained them.
Holland's friend said Holland "thought he [O'Connell] was a family
friend," and invited him often to his home, only to learn later that
O'Connell "was of course sleeping with Sue." Earl Holland became convinced
that the alleged affair had gone on for several years before he learned
about it. The divorce was finalized in October 1987. Sources differ on
when the relationship ended; according to Holland's friend, the affair
continued for at least a year after the divorce, possibly longer.
Another close personal friend in whom Earl Holland confided said there was
"a mountain of circumstantial evidence of an affair," and that Earl
Holland frequently discussed the alleged affair with him, both while he
was married to Judge Holland and after. "Earl was convinced that they
[Verla Sue and O'Connell] were having an affair. He was absolutely
convinced."
Hood's original trial lawyer, David K. Haynes, said, "Everyone in the
courthouse had heard those rumors" about the judge and the DA. But Haynes
said that without proof, he did not feel he could raise the issue at
trial.
According to a report prepared by a private investigator in 1995 in
connection with Hood's appeals, Haynes may have had other reasons for
failing to pursue "those rumors." The report quotes a paralegal who worked
for Haynes, Janet Heitmiller, claiming that her boss "feared raising the
relationship as an issue in Dean's [Charles Dean Hood's] case would cost
them points with the judge concerning other cases" he might argue before
her. According to the investigator's report, Heitmiller learned of the
alleged relationship while working for Haynes and believed that Judge
Holland and O'Connell "were still dating up to a year after the case was
resolved."
The report, written by Tena S. Francis, also quotes a local attorney, Ray
Wheless, as saying that "the judge and DA tried to keep their relationship
as private as possible. People in the legal community knew about it,
though, and the 2 could often be seen going to lunch together from the
courthouse."
The investigator concluded that "the relationship with O'Connell is what
cost [Judge] Holland her marriage." The report added that Wheless "does
not know why or how or when O'Connell's relationship with Holland ended."
Now a Collin County judge, Wheless did not return phone calls to his home
and office. Although Hood's appellate lawyers discussed the alleged affair
over the years, the issue was never formally raised on any court
proceeding.
Today, Hood's trial attorney, David Haynes, says that evidence of the
alleged affair "certainly would have made a difference in the way the
defense was approached. It would have cast some doubt about the fairness
of the tribunal." But he says there is no way to know for sure if rulings
Judge Holland made against his client were prejudiced due to the alleged
relationship with the district attorney.
Richard Ellis, a San Francisco attorney now representing Hood, agrees that
there is no way to connect Holland's rulings to allegations about her
personal life, but he considers at least one of her decisions, refusing a
defense request for a psychological evaluation, "totally out of the
mainstream of judicial authority," given a Supreme Court ruling on the
issue. Although Hood is not mentally retarded, a scientific presentation
by a defense psychiatrist might have convinced the jury to forgo the death
sentence. As a child, Hood suffered a traumatic head injury, and there was
evidence that he was regularly whipped by his father.
David R. Dow, a University of Houston law professor who is also working on
the Hood matter, insists, "It is a red herring to look for particular
things that are challengeable, because what you have in a case like this
is a complete and fundamental breakdown of all the premises of the
adversary system." Based on the relationship of the judge and the
prosecutor, Dow says there is no question that Hood should be granted a
new trial. "Any criminal defendant who stands to be sentenced to death is
entitled to a proceeding that is not only fair, but has the appearance of
fairness. At a minimum, there is no appearance of fairness in this case,
and we have good reason to believe the judge made decisions that resulted
in concrete harm. Did she make those decisions because she was sleeping
with the prosecutor? Who knows. But we shouldn't have to engage in that
kind of idle speculation." Dow says the judge should have recused herself
from the case.
Stephen Gillers, a professor of law at New York University Law School,
agrees. One of the country's leading authorities on legal ethics, Gillers
said, "There's no question -- it's incontrovertible -- this justice should
not have sat in this case, at least not without informed consent on the
record from the defense ... The public has a right to complete confidence
in the court's disinterestedness, in the court's objectivity. It's simply
not possible to know how the case might have gone differently or how the
rulings might have been altered absent this relationship."
Gillers cited the widely used ABA Code of Judicial Conduct, which provides
that "A judge shall disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which
the judge's impartiality might reasonably be questioned." Where there is
doubt, a judge is obliged to disclose information that lawyers might
consider relevant to the question of disqualification.
Citing the same provision, Hofstra law professor Monroe Freedman, author
of "Understanding Lawyers' Ethics," said, "Beyond any doubt, a judge's
romantic involvement with a lawyer appearing before him 'might' cause a
reasonable person to 'question' his impartiality. I am confident that no
one who works in the field of judges' ethics would take a different view
from mine in this case."
Hood, 36, may have some of the country's top legal ethicists on his side,
but getting the courts to grant him a new trial is another matter. If
Judge Holland's behavior in the case is challenged, the state will almost
certainly argue that the defense still cannot prove that her rulings were
prejudiced or that they would have changed the outcome of the jury's
deliberations.
With his execution date imminent, Hood's lawyers have raised several other
legal issues. On Thursday, the Supreme Court was scheduled to hear Hood's
appeal for a new DNA test, with a decision expected on Monday. Hood's
lawyers are also contesting the constitutionality of the Texas jury
instructions given at his trial, which use the same language as
instructions since deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
(source: Salon.com -- Alan Berlow is the author of "Dead Season: A Story
of Murder and Revenge." His writing has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly,
Harper's and the American Prospect)
