Bid to halt Texas execution Charles Dean Hood rejected

[London Lass]

Bid to halt execution rejected----Allegations of relationship between judge, prosecutor raised too late, court rules.


Allegations that Charles Dean Hood was sentenced to death while his judge and prosecutor secretly dated should not halt tonight's scheduled execution of the convicted double murderer, Texas' highest criminal court ruled Monday.

Hood raised the accusation of a secret relationship too late in the appeals process to be considered, a unanimous Court of Criminal Appeals ruled.

"The Legislature has made it clear that we are not at liberty to entertain the merits of the claim," Judge Tom Price wrote in a concurring statement joined by 3 judges.

Last week, Hood filed two nearly identical appeals saying that then-state DistrictJudge Verla Sue Holland, now retired, could not have provided Hood with a fair trial while involved in a long-term intimate relationship with then-Collin County District Attorney Tom O'Connell.

O'Connell, now a private lawyer, played an active role in prosecuting Hood at his 1990 trial.

In his latest appeals, Hood argued that Holland had a duty to step aside or inform defense lawyers about the potential conflict of interest.

The Court of Criminal Appeals rejected 1 appeal, known as a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, citing problems with the appellate lawyers' signatures.

The second appeal was rejected because Texas law limits death row inmates to one habeas petition unless lawyers uncover new information that was not previously available.

Gregory Wiercioch, Hood's appellate lawyer, criticized the court for dismissing the claims "on 2 very hyper-technical procedural grounds."

"The court is not grappling with the merits of the claim. They are not discussing whether or not the relationship existed, and if it did exist, what the impact of it was in Judge Holland's ability to remain impartial," Wiercioch said.

Holland was on the Court of Criminal Appeals from 1997 to 2001 and served with 8 of the 9 current judges. All 9 judges took part in Monday's decision.

The court's unsigned opinion did not elaborate on reasons for denying the appeals, but Price's concurring statement said Hood should have raised allegations of the relationship in his first habeas petition, filed in 1997.

Hood's lawyers hired a private investigator who tried, unsuccessfully, to track down rumors of the Holland-O'Connell relationship in the mid-1990s. Hood's latest appeals said lawyers did not want to repeat unsubstantiated rumors in court documents and only raised the issue after obtaining an affidavit from a former assistant district attorney, Matthew Goeller, on June 3.

Goeller's sworn statement said the Holland-O'Connell relationship was "common knowledge" in the prosecutor's office when Hood was convicted and sentenced to death.

But Price said Goeller's statement did not qualify as new information because lawyers knew about the relationship rumors in the 1990s.

Price's statement was joined by Judges Cathy Cochran, Charles Holcomb and Cheryl Johnson.

Wiercioch said he will refile one appeal today with the lawyers' signatures corrected in hopes that the court will consider the merits of its relationship argument. But he also will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to halt tonight's execution based on allegations of the Holland-O'Connell relationship.

Hood was sentenced to die in the 1989 shooting deaths of his boss, Ronald Williamson, and Williamson's girlfriend Tracie Wallace in their Plano home.

Hood's bloody fingerprints were found inside the home.

When he was arrested a day after the killings, in Indiana, Hood had the victims' car, clothes, jewelry, camera and credit cards.

(source: Austin American-Statesman)

http://people.smu.edu/rhalperi/updates.html

[London Lass]

More specific info on the case:

Inmate facing lethal injection for double slaying


Condemned inmate Charles Dean Hood doesn't dispute he drove from Texas to his native Indiana in a $70,000 car that belonged to the man he's convicted of killing.

But Hood, a former topless bar bouncer set to die Tuesday for fatally shooting Ronald Williamson and Tracie Lynn Wallace almost 19 years ago in suburban Dallas, insists he had Williamson's permission to use the Cadillac for the 800-mile trip.

Hood also insists he didn't kill the couple, and that his fingerprints throughout the Plano home where they were shot in 1989 can easily be explained because Hood was living there and doing odd jobs for Williamson.

"He took care of me for almost two months," Hood said from Texas' death row, where a Collin County jury sent him in 1990.


Wallace, 26, had danced at the bar where Williamson, 46, was a customer. Hood said he had also worked at the club.

Hood, 38, would be the 2nd Texas inmate executed this year in Huntsville and the 2nd in as many weeks. Executions around the country and in the nation's busiest capital punishment state - where 26 executions occurred last year - were on hold from September until mid-April. That's when the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for resumption of executions by rejecting an appeal from 2 Kentucky death row prisoners who argued lethal injection was unconstitutionally cruel. Lawyers for Hood were in state courts trying to void his conviction and death sentence, accusing a prosecutor from his trial and the trial judge of having a years-long romantic relationship that included the time of Hood's trial. Such an undisclosed relationship would be improper and legally unethical.

Other appeals in federal courts questioned whether instructions given to jurors who decided he should be executed failed to take into consideration what his lawyers argued were physical and mental problems and an abusive childhood, and whether the state should have provided him a lawyer to prepare a clemency request.

Hood said he wasn't responsible for the murders.

"I did not kill those people," he told The Associated Press. "There was no evidence saying I killed those folks."

Hood's prints, however, were found on plastic bags taped to Wallace's body. Other evidence showed he used Williamson's credit card to order flowers for a woman in Indiana and that he told people at the flower shop he was Williamson, showing off a gold watch that belonged to the victim. He also had pawned a diamond ring belonging to Williamson and tried cashing checks from Williamson's business by forging the victim's signature on the checks.

A jury deliberated less than 2 1/2 hours before convicting him of capital murder.

When Williamson came home for lunch Nov. 1, 1989, he called Plano police to report a burglary. 4 minutes later, an officer responding to the call got no answer at the door, looked in a window and spotted Williamson's body on the floor. Then Wallace's body, partially wrapped in plastic garbage bags, was found stuffed in a water heater closet.

"I forgive his soul but I'll never forgive what he did," said Julie Wallace, whose youngest sister, known as Sissy, was killed. "It's important for me to forgive to have peace. And that's the only reason."

She planned to travel from her home in Michigan to watch Hood die.

"It's a sad situation for all involved - his family as well as ours," she said. "Sissy has been gone for almost 20 years now. She is no longer with us. Even though his life hasn't been the greatest, he's still able to breathe and feel and see the sunrise and sunset, all which my sister will never be able to do."

Prosecutors said Hood, a seventh-grade dropout who was 20 at the time, shot the couple and stole money, jewelry and Williamson's Cadillac, then drove to Vincennes, Ind., hoping to impress a woman he considered his girlfriend.

When he called the woman from the car, she called police. Officers were waiting for him when he showed up at the business where she worked.

"I had permission to drive all the vehicles he had," Hood said from prison.

During the punishment phase of the trial, prosecution witnesses told of Hood's previous instances of violence, including the rape of a 15-year-old girl, and that he had a juvenile and adult criminal record that included a 2-year prison term in Indiana for passing bad checks.

"I've done a lot of stupid stuff in my life," Hood said. "But I have never killed nobody."

Hood came within two days of execution three years ago. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, however, gave him a reprieve so his claims of mental retardation could be examined.

He's among at least 13 Texas death row inmates with executions dates in the coming months. 4 are set for July, beginning with Carlton Turner, scheduled for injection July 10 for killing his parents 10 years ago at their suburban Dallas home.

(source: Associated Press)

http://people.smu.edu/rhalperi/updates.html

[London Lass]

Update:

state misses execution deadline; Hood is spared

Texas halts inmate's execution for 1989 double slaying


Texas halted the scheduled execution of a former topless club bouncer for a double slaying almost 20 years ago as time ran out.

Prison officials were faced with a midnight CDT deadline Tuesday to administer the lethal drugs to Charles Dean Hood but feared they could not follow the proper procedures in time after lengthy appeals delayed the scheduled punishment.

Hood would have been the 2nd Texas prisoner executed in as many weeks.

Hood was arrested in his native Indiana the day after the 1989 slayings of Ronald Williamson and Tracie Lynn Wallace at Williamson's home in the Dallas suburb of Plano.

(source: Associated Press)

http://people.smu.edu/rhalperi/updates.html

[London Lass]

Update:

Collin County murderer not executed after day of legal wrangling


After hours of legal wrangling between attorneys and judges, including protests from leading legal ethicists over an alleged relationship between a judge and prosecutor in the trial of Charles Dean Hood, Tuesday passed without the Collin County murderer's execution.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ultimately green-lighted the execution by ordering a local judge to reinstate a death warrant that had been withdrawn by another judge. The death warrant was reinstated, but the execution was called off shortly before midnight when prison officials said they didn't have time to ensure it was conducted properly before the midnight deadline for the death warrant was to expire.

The bizarre tug-of-war between the lower court and the state's highest criminal court over whether Mr. Hood got a fair trial is likely to roil death penalty advocates and opponents who keep a close eye on the nation's busiest death penalty state.

Mr. Hood came within 90 minutes of his scheduled 6 p.m. execution – which was delayed after a judge vacated his death warrant. But he could hardly draw a ragged breath of relief before prosecutors filed an appeal to have his sentence for a Plano double-slaying carried out.

The merits of the issue were then lost in a maze of technicalities as judges and attorneys debated whether Mr. Hood's death warrant could be vacated and reinstated.

On Monday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected a stay to consider the issue of the alleged improper relationship, saying the allegation was unproved and not new.

Sequence of events

About 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, without explaining his reasoning, a district judge in Collin County ordered the death warrant vacated and immediately recused himself from the case.

The prosecution then repeatedly appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeals. The appeals court initially ruled that the district judge had no authority to act, but since he had recused himself, the appeals court also said it could not order him to reinstate the death warrant.

After more appeals from prosecutors, about 9:15 p.m. the Court of Criminal Appeals ordered Judge John Ovard, the regional presiding judge, to reinstate the death warrant. He did so shortly before 11 p.m.

Defense reaction

The legal maneuvering dumbfounded defense attorneys.

"We've never been in this position before," said Andrea Keilen, executive director of the Texas Defender Service, which is representing Mr. Hood. "I've never seen anything like this."

"All of this is quibbling over technical issues in the case when what we should be talking about is the trial judge and the trial prosecutor engaged in an affair during a capital murder case," she said.

John Rolater, the assistant district attorney now handling the Hood case, declined to comment.

Mr. Hood has been on death row since 1990 for the robbery and murders of Ronald Williamson and his girlfriend, Tracie Lynn Wallace, in Plano the year before.

When told Tuesday afternoon that his execution date had been withdrawn, Mr. Hood, 38, cried, according to prison spokeswoman Michelle Lyons.

"I just thank God," he said. "I just walk by my faith. If it didn't happen, I was going home to the Lord."

Relatives of the victims at the death chamber waiting to witness the execution could not be reached for comment.

Alleged affair

Rumors about the alleged intimate relationship between Judge Sue Holland and then-District Attorney Tom O'Connell have circulated for years. They have repeatedly declined to comment.

In a letter to The Dallas Morning News in 2000, Mr. Hood wrote, "During my trial, the setting [sic] judge and district attorney were having a sexual relationship, a huge ("conflict of interest")."

The allegations were publicized in 2005 in an article on Salon.com but had not been raised at trial or during Mr. Hood's other appeals because attorneys had no proof, only rumors.

But in early June, former Assistant District Attorney Matthew Goeller swore in an affidavit saying the relationship was "common knowledge," lasting from 1987 until 1993.

Mr. Hood's attorneys felt that affidavit from a former prosecutor who worked in the office during the time of the trial offered sufficient reason to introduce the alleged relationship as a reason to reverse the conviction and sentence.

"The absence of an impartial judge is a structural defect," they wrote.

But to the dismay of Mr. Hood's lawyers, and several leading legal ethicists, the Court of Criminal Appeals declined to address the issue, saying the information was not new.

The former assistant district attorney who filed the affidavit "does not allege that he has any personal knowledge of such a relationship," Judge Tom Price wrote in a concurring opinion denying the appeal and the stay of execution.

Defense attorneys then turned to Judge Curt Henderson in the Collin County district court, and he granted the execution date withdrawal.

Judge Henderson, who was an assistant district attorney in Collin County from 1979 until 1986, then immediately recused himself. He asked the presiding judge of the court's administrative region to appoint a new judge.

Prosecutors respond

Collin County prosecutors responded with the Tuesday evening appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeals that argued that the trial court had no authority to modify the execution date, saying Mr. Hood was engaging in "gamesmanship" and a "fishing expedition" to find more evidence after the Court of Criminal Appeals had already ruled.

Earlier in the day, Larry Fox, former chairman of the American Bar Association Ethics Committee, worried about the impact of Mr. Hood's possible execution. Mr. Fox was one of several other legal experts calling for review of the case.

"I was thinking the headlines tomorrow for us around the world would be a black mark on our system of justice," he said.

(source: Dallas Morning News)

http://people.smu.edu/rhalperi/updates.html

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<snippets from article.
Hood's prints, however, were found on plastic bags taped to Wallace's body. Other evidence showed he used Williamson's credit card to order flowers for a woman in Indiana and that he told people at the flower shop he was Williamson, showing off a gold watch that belonged to the victim. He also had pawned a diamond ring belonging to Williamson and tried cashing checks from Williamson's business by forging the victim's signature on the checks.

Allegations that Charles Dean Hood was sentenced to death while his judge and prosecutor secretly dated should not halt tonight's scheduled execution of the convicted double murderer, Texas' highest criminal court ruled Monday.

Hood raised the accusation of a secret relationship too late in the appeals process to be considered, a unanimous Court of Criminal Appeals ruled.

There is too much evidence against him. They have his hand in the cookie jar, so to speak.

I do agree with conflict of interest where the prosecutor and judge are concerned and never should this happen. If the judge is dating the prosecutor to me it's a slam dunk on the conviction. This should not take place.