Texas Court of Criminal Appeals - Trials in Capital Punishment Cases - Capital Appeal Controversy

Capital Appeal Controversy

On September 25, 2007, Presiding Judge Keller refused convicted murderer Michael Richard's plea for a 20-minute extension to submit an appeal beyond the court's 5 p.m. closing time, due to his lawyer's alleged computer breakdown. Following the denial of his stay application by the U.S. Supreme Court, Richard was executed later that night. The United States Supreme Court had earlier that day accepted for consideration a case known as Baze v. Rees from Kentucky in which two death row inmates were challenging the constitutionality of lethal injection as a method of execution. Richard was the last person executed in the United States after the U.S. Supreme Court accepted the Baze case. Keller, the Presiding Judge, made the decision not to accept the late appeal without consulting the duty judge or any of the other judges on the court. As a result, several judicial complaints were filed against Keller with the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. On February 19, 2009, the State Commission on Judicial Conduct charged Keller with misconduct, writing her behavior "constitutes incompetence in the performance of duties of office" and "casts public discredit on the judiciary." The CCA subsequently changed its rules to allow for late submissions in death penalty cases and other emergency situations,and recently enabled filing in death penalty execution cases and certain other emergency situations.