Word: courting
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...special master - a judge named by the state supreme court for the occasion - has been appointed to preside over the fact-finding trial. San Antonio District Judge David Berchelman Jr., a former member of the CCA, can either recommend to the commission that the charges be dismissed or that Judge Keller be reprimanded or even removed from office by the state supreme court...
...while working as an appellate attorney in the Dallas prosecutor's office, she ran for a spot on the CCA and, thanks to a Republican landslide on the coattails of George W. Bush, won her seat. In her second term, she ran successfully for the top slot, the court's presiding judge. Keller has consistently been part of the court's conservative voting bloc and has said she saw her election as an opportunity to balance the high court after several decades of domination by judges inclined toward the defense bar. (However, there has always been a high degree...
...even though she has been silent thus far on the upcoming trial. In a written response to the charges, she derided the defense attorneys' claims that computer trouble delayed their paperwork: "It did not take a computer to prepare and timely file ... it could have been handwritten and the court would have accepted it as Judge Keller informed the Commission...
...accused of wronging: the executed Michael Richard. Richard had a long legal history and a criminal record that evokes little sympathy. "By the time he was executed," Keller wrote in her response to the charges, "Richard had two trials, two direct appeals (including to the United States Supreme Court), two state habeas corpus proceedings and three federal habeas corpus hearings or motions." She added that the charge against her that Richard was not accorded access to open courts or the right to be heard "is patently without merit...
...considered in his first trial, according to the appellate record. But Richard was convicted again in 1995 and once again given the death penalty, even after his mother and sister were allowed to testify about the alleged abuse during the punishment phase of the trial. Following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling prohibiting the execution of mentally retarded prisoners, his lawyers appealed for another trial based on his alleged IQ level. The CCA turned him down and that appeal was ongoing when the Supreme Court suddenly opened a new avenue for appeal on the day Richard was scheduled...