Hearing set in CCA Presiding Judge Sharon Keller’s ethics case

In a March 31 order, the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct scheduled the hearing on objections to the special master’s findings in In Re: Honorable Sharon Keller for June 18 in Austin. Seana Willing, the commission’s executive director, says, “This is as early as we could get 13 commissioners and two busy trial attorneys to agree on a hearing date.” In February 2009, the judicial conduct commission initiated formal proceedings against Keller, presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, for alleged misconduct in connection with the case of Michael Richard, whom the state executed on Sept. 25, 2007, after his attorneys were unable to file a stay of execution and writ of prohibition with the CCA. In his January findings, 37th District Judge David Berchelmann of San Antonio, who served as special master in the Keller ethics case, recommended that Keller should not be removed from office or reprimanded for saying the CCA clerk’s office would not stay open past 5 p.m. to receive the documents Richard’s attorneys were trying to file to stop his execution. Berchelmann wrote in his findings that the Texas Defender Service attorneys who represented Richard bear the bulk of the blame for what happened. But Berchelmann also found Keller’s judgment that the clerk’s office would not remain open to receive the documents was highly questionable. Both sides filed objections to the findings. Keller did not immediately return a telephone call for comment. Her attorney, Charles “Chip” Babcock, a partner in Jackson Walker in Dallas and Houston, is traveling and did not return an e-mail. Willing declines comment on the case.

UPDATE:  Chip Babcock sent the following statement in an e-mail: “We look forward to presenting Judge Keller's position to the Commission and are confident that the Commissioners will follow the findings of the district judge and dismiss the charges."
-- Mary Alice Robbins

Comments

[Swity]

As a gsngater, I am insulted to be put in the same boat as Tembeckjian, Friedberg and the other fools who have made a mockery of ethics. Us gsngaters have a deep sense of what is right and wrong, though we pick the latter. The CJC fools have no sense of anything. I believe an apology to all gsngaters is in order.