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Urge Judge Sharon Keller to Resign from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and Urge Texas Governor Rick Perry
and Members of the Texas Legislature to
Pressure Keller to Resign

Attention: Be sure to fill out the text area form below. Do not hit send without writing your message, otherwise you will be sending a blank email.

Please use the following information to draft an email in your own words to Sharon Keller. In your email, you might consider using words like shock, dismay, disappointment, embarrassment, loss of trust, lack of integrity, etc to express how you feel about her conduct. Your email will also be copied to all the judges on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Your letters will be most effective if you limit your comments only to the issue of Keller's unethical behavior on Sept 25 regarding her refusal to accept an appeal from Michael Richard's attorneys. Do not write anything about what you think about her votes as a judge. She is free to vote however she wants, she is not free to deny someone a right to be heard by closing the court and refusing to accept an appeal.

We will send your message to the official known email address of Sharon Keller. Please urge her to resign. We hope she will read the emails sent to her urging her to resign, but if not, the Governor and members of the Legislature will also read your emails since we want them to urge her to resign.

Please also urge members of the Texas Legislature and Gov Rick Perry to support the resignation or removal from office of Sharon Keller.
Ask the members of the legislature to file their own complaint or sign on to another complaint against Judge Sharon Keller (Presiding Judge, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals), so that the Commission on Judicial Conduct can take immediate and severe disciplinary action against Keller, including removing her from office.

Keller abused her official position to impede Michael Richard's access to her court and thus to justice on the day he was executed by the State of Texas. It is clear from her actions that Judge Keller can no longer be expected to preside over death penalty cases with the requisite fair, bias-free and even-handed disposition so critical to such serious life and death matters. Justice was not done in the Richard case, and if it was not done because Keller dishonestly said "We close at 5", then there is no question that Keller is unfit to be a judge and should be removed from office.

SUMMARY STATEMENT

Judge Keller refused to allow the attorneys for Michael Richard, scheduled to be executed on the same day, to file pleadings on his behalf, based on a grant of certiorari by the U.S. Supreme Court that same day on the question of the constitutionality of lethal injection. The attorneys had requested that the court clerk's office remain open twenty minutes past the 5pm closing time because they had experienced computer failure in the preparation of their pleading. Judge Keller refused the request, even though she was not the judge assigned to the Richard case. As a result, Richard then was executed by lethal injection.

Judge Keller has been quoted in the media as having told the clerk of the Court to convey to Richard's lawyers that "We close at 5". However, other judges have said in the media that they were in the building and willing to accept the submission. It appears that Keller may have lied by saying, "We close at 5", when she knew very well that the appeal could be accepted after 5 and that the court does not "close" at 5, because judges on her court are able to be reached and able to issue orders to stay executions even after 5.

Judge Keller's actions denied Michael Richard two constitutional rights, access to the courts and due process, which led to his execution. Her actions also brought the integrity of the Texas judiciary and of her court into disrepute and was a source of scandal to the citizens of the state. In addition, her actions may make it more difficult for law enforcement personnel to bring offenders to justice, if people do not believe that they will be accorded due process and fair treatment by the Presiding Judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

Without a ruling by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Richard's appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court could not consider his appeal or a request to stay his execution, pending a Supreme Court decision. Court of Criminal Appeals judges were standing by on September 25 to work the evening on which Michael Richard was executed because they expected his lawyers to file an emergency appeal based on the U.S. Supreme Court's decision earlier in the day to consider a Kentucky case challenging the constitutionality of lethal injection. At least three judges were working in the courthouse at the time, including the judge assigned to the Richard case, and others were available by phone, if needed, according to court personnel. Presiding Judge Keller refused to allow the emergency 11th hour appeal to be filed after 5pm. Richard's lawyers had requested the court clerk to stay open for an extra twenty minutes so they could file their petition for stay of execution. They had experienced severe computer problems in preparing the pleading and so informed the clerk. Judge Keller refused the request, and Richard was put to death.

Neither Judge Keller nor the court's general counsel, Edward Marty, who had consulted with Judge Keller on the request to stay open, advised any of the judges of the request by Richard?s attorneys. Judge Keller did not consult Judge Cheryl Johnson, who was assigned the case. Judge Keller acknowledged she [Johnson] was at the court at the time. Johnson told the Austin American-Statesman she was dismayed by Keller's decision. "And I was angry," she told the paper. "If I'm in charge of the execution, I ought to have known about those things "I mean this is a death."

According to undisputed press accounts, Judge Cathy Cochran said, "There were plenty of judges here, and there were plenty of other personnel here. A number of judges stayed very late that evening, waiting for a filing from the defense attorney." She said she herself had gone home, but was available by telephone. Judge Cochran said, at the least, a decision should have been made by the full court on whether to accept the appeal. "I would definitely accept anything at any time from someone who was about to be executed," she said.

In an opinion piece the Houston Chronicle published a month before Keller was first elected to the CCA in 1994, she called the failure to impose capital punishment on convicted murderers "a human rights violation -- particularly if we take into account the human rights that murderers violate when left alive to kill again." This statement shows an extreme bias towards the use of capital punishment that is inconsistent with the duties of a judge. Keller's action in the Richard case show that she believed her self-declared human right to impose capital punishment was more important than protecting the constitutional rights of a man about to be executed.

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November 21, 2009

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