Legal Ethics
Death-Row Inmate Claims Trial Judge Secretly Dated Prosecutor
Posted Jun 13, 2008, 06:20 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
A Texas death-row inmate scheduled to be executed on Tuesday claims in court papers that the judge who presided at his trial was secretly dating the prosecutor.
The allegation was made in an appeal filed on behalf of Charles Dean Hood, convicted of a double murder in 1990, the Austin American-Statesman reports.
The judge, who has since retired from the bench, was Verla Sue Holland. Hood’s appeal claims she had an affair with Tom O'Connell, who was the district attorney for Collin County. Neither was married at the time.
"The wall of silence that has long protected Judge Holland must now come down," the appeal said. "An intimate relationship ... not only implies a special willingness of the judge to accept the prosecutor's representations and arguments, but also suggests extensive personal contacts beyond the confines of the courtroom."
Affidavits filed with the court said Hood’s lawyers tried to confirm an affair since the mid-1990s. They finally saw some success on June 3 when a former assistant D.A. signed a statement saying the relationship was “common knowledge” in the office.
Holland also served on the Criminal Court of Appeals, Texas’ highest criminal court, from 1997 to 2001. The American-Statesman says eight of the court’s nine current judges served with her, while the New York Times says at least seven of the judges who will hear the case served with her.
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