Big Hearing Monday in Wacky Texas Death-Penalty Appeal

[WSJ_law_blog]

To wrap up the week, let’s stay down in the Lone Star state and get you up to speed on one of the odder death-penalty cases we’ve ever read about.

It’s almost too nutty to be true: Lawyers for Charles Dean Hood (pictured), a convicted murderer set to die Wednesday, want retired state District Judge Verla Sue Holland and former Collin County District Attorney Tom O’Connell to be deposed about claims they had a secret affair during Hood’s trial. A hearing in civil court on whether to depose the two is slated for Monday. Here are stories from Reuters, the AP, and the Dallas Morning-News.

Holland, a former judge on the state’s highest criminal court, and O’Connell, now in private practice, have refused to address the allegations. The claim was first raised in an affidavit from a former assistant district attorney in O’Connell’s office.

In a move that surprised many, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott on Thursday notified the court he would file a friend-of-the-court brief favoring a review of the allegations “to ensure that justice is certain and beyond question . . . as well as to preserve the integrity of Texas’ criminal justice system.”

Hood, 39, is a former club bouncer who was 20 when he was arrested in Indiana for the fatal shootings of two individuals in Plano, Texas in 1989. He was scheduled to die June 17 but his execution was halted because state prison officials said they didn’t have enough time to follow proper procedures before the execution warrant expired at midnight.

Photo: AP