E-filing requested in death penalty cases

If a computer crash prevented Michael Richard’s lawyers from filing a motion to stay his execution on Sept. 25, would the ability to file documents electronically at the Court of Criminal Appeals have helped? About 300 Texas lawyers think it would.  On Oct. 24, the lawyers petitioned the CCA to adopt a rule permitting the e-filing of petitions, motions and other documents in death penalty cases.  The state executed Richard around 8 p.m. on Sept. 25 – the same day the U.S. Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari in a Kentucky case to consider whether execution by lethal injection constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.  However, the high court denied Richard’s petition for a stay shortly before he was executed.  Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, says CCA Presiding Judge Sharon Keller’s decision not to keep that court’s clerk’s office open past 5 p.m. on Sept. 25 so that lawyers representing Richard could file a motion for stay “short-circuited” the process, resulting in the Supreme Court’s denial of Richard’s stay. Charles “Chuck” Herring, a partner in Austin’s Herring & Irwin, helped spearhead the petition for e-filing at the CCA.  “This is a very small step toward addressing a massively dysfunctional death-penalty system, but it appears to be a step that would have saved Mr. Richard’s life,” Herring says.  CCA Judge Tom Price, the court’s spokesman, did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment. Most appellate courts in Texas do not allow e-filing of documents.  Blake Hawthorne, clerk of the Texas Supreme Court, says the state’s highest civil court does allow attorneys to e-mail documents if there is an emergency. But Hawthorne says the court does not consider documents filed until it receives paper copies.  “It is extremely rare for the court to issue any kind of order until the paper copy is here,” Hawthorne says.  Change is coming, however.  Carl Reynolds, administrative director of the State Office of Court Administration (OCA), says the Texas Legislature appropriated $2.3 million in the current two-year budget period so the OCA can begin building the Texas Appeals Management and E-Filing System.  But constructing the system is likely to take some time.
-- Mary Alice Robbins