(Keith Hampton is a widely respected attorney in Texas seeking a seat on the Court of Criminal Appeals. He's running against presiding Judge Sharon Keller. - promoted by Katherine Haenschen)
For over a year, I have worked tirelessly to persuade Republican Judge Larry Meyers to become the first statewide Republican to switch parties. I was so convinced he would run against Presiding Judge Sharon Keller as a Democrat, I decided to run in an open seat to ensure we had a Democratic candidate in each race. But after weeks of meetings at Texas Democratic Party offices, it recently became clear that Judge Meyers would remain a Republican. Under these circumstances, I have decided to run against the incumbent most deserving a challenger, Presiding Judge Keller.
I thank each of you who has worked to collect signatures. I must now collect those same signatures more quickly than ever to be on the ballot for Place 1 against Judge Keller. In my efforts to switch a Republican-to-Democrat I lost weeks of time, leaving me only 60 days to file the petitions necessary for me to be the only Democrat on the ballot for a statwide judicial race. Please sign up now to help collect petitions.
I thank you again for helping my campaign for this judicial office, and I thank you for caring about the state of justice in Texas. It matters.
(Good info about our statewide candidates here. - promoted by Phillip Martin)
Over the past ten weeks, the Texas Democratic Party promoted an unprecedented "Meet the Statewides" campaign on our website. Each week, we promoted content for our statewide candidates on our website, Facebook, and Twitter pages. We asked candidates to submit a video, write an original op-ed, and provide biographical information. We at the TDP also penned an issue piece, sent out all material to our e-mail list, and created duplicative Spanish-language pages for each candidate.
In the coming days, we'll be revisiting the campaign. Today, we begin with our Texas Supreme Court & Court of Criminal Appeals Candidates. Click on the links below to learn more about our statewide Democrats, and how you can help them win in 2010.
If elected, Keith Hampton will be the only judge who has handled death penalty cases in all stages of litigation – from accusation, trial, appeal and all post-conviction proceedings, including appearing before the Supreme Court of the United States.
There are no “Democratic” decisions or “conservative” analyses; there is only the exposition of law in an impartial manner. The force and persuasiveness of the reasoning of judicial opinions must stand on their own. Political labeling is best left in the legislative branch. In this democratic society, the judicial branch of government must remain outside the lawmaking world and avoid the political storms and policy shifts of the day. In this way, judges can conduct their decisionmaking in an impartial way, free from the pressures of competing interest groups. Law itself is thereby strengthened, sustained by a judiciary that moves cautiously and skeptically on the issues before it.
The “totalitarian wing” of the Court has a well-documented and thoroughly perplexing history of unprofessional actions. From the “sleeping lawyer” case in October 2000, to investigations into the judicial conduct of Sharon Keller in 2007, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is in desperate need of professional, accountable judges on its bench.
Last week, the Texas Democratic Party launched our "Meet the Statewides" campaign. Each week between now and the State Convention in June, we will be featuring one of our ten statewide candidates. The campaign is designed to introduce our candidates to Texas Democrats, and provide an online resource for future communications any Democratic groups, clubs, blogs, or activists wish to produce for our statewide candidates.
Each week's "Meet the Statewides" campaign will feature the following:
A brief video introduction from the candidate
Candidate bio page
An issue piece about the candidate/campaign, written by the TDP
An op-ed from the candidate
Links to the candidate's website and social networking pages
ALL communications will be duplicated in Spanish-language format
Our first candidate we featured was Keith Hampton, running for the Court of Criminal Appeals Place 6. Keith is a well-experienced, well-qualified candidate running for a seat on the Court made most famous by the controversy surrounding Sharon Keller, and her irresponsible actions as presiding judge of the Court.
Embedded below is Keith's introductory video. Be sure to visit our website to learn more about Keith Hampton, and check back every week between now and the State Convention as we continue to introduce your statewide candidates for 2010.
Texas has exonerated many individuals who were wrongfully imprisoned, and many of the exonerees were victims of bad identification procedures, prosecutorial misconduct, incompetent representation and junk science. During the last session, as the legislative director for the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, I worked for meaningful reform of eyewitness identification, among many other issues. In my testimony to the committee, I made these recommendations based on the principle that the interests of science should be paramount to the interests of legal adversaries:
1. The Forensic Science Commission should be overseen and managed by scientists and not lawyers. Lawmakers can easily make a change to the statute that ensures a scientist acts as the presiding officer of the Commission.
2. No area of forensics should be off-limits to scientific inquiry. Currently, the statute prohibits the Forensic Science Commission from investigating fingerprint examinations, breath-testing and digital evidence. All prohibitions should be removed and the Commission should be permitted to investigate all forensic science it deems necessary.
3. The Commission should become the accrediting agency for Texas crime labs. The Commission should also determine the error rates of all accredited crime labs and publish them on the Commission website.
All of these proposals would advance the integrity and scope of the Commission and its ongoing mission to identify and exclude junk science from Texas courtrooms. Further, in light of the difficult budgetary circumstances our state is facing, none of these measures would entail a fiscal note.
Because of my passion for justice, whether advocating for common-sense forensic reforms or 20 years of defending the underserved in the courtroom, I am now taking the next step towards making Texas’s judicial system the best it can be: I am running for the Court of Criminal Appeals. I hope you share my concerns about the state of forensic science in Texas and will support my campaign for the Court of Criminal Appeals. Please go to hamptonforjudge.com to sign up for my mailing list and make a contribution.
The renewal of news about the Cameron Todd Willingham case should not only shed light on the reasons Rick Perry is a bad governor, but it should also illuminate our way-too-Republican Court of Criminal Appeals, which denied writs of Habeus Corpus to Willingham continuously, even a month before execution.
The court is fully occupied by Republicans, and three judges are on the ballot in 2010. Two of those three, according to Grits, belong to the "more or less totalitarian wing" of the court and fully deserve strong challengers.
Keith Hampton, a veteran appellate lawyer and chair of the legislative committee for the Texas Criminal Defense Laywers Association, has announced his candidacy for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, lining up to run against Michael Keasler. Here's Hampton's campaign website.
I've had my differences with Keith but he'd be an overwhelming improvement over Judge Keasler, if only to add some balance to the range of opinions on the court.
If the larger Democratic ticket can pull even a slightly successful year, good candidates have a strong chance to defeat Republicans for this court. The Willingham case is only the most recent spurt of anger that can be directed to the CCA.
Now, if only we can get another CCA candidate or two...and a ticket to lead the Democratic charge.
The seven deadly virtues, those ghastly little traps
Oh no, my liege, they were not meant for me
Those seven deadly virtues were made for other chaps
Who love a life of failure and ennui
Closing the Courthouse rather than accepting a late appeal in a capital case, after equipment failure?
The highest criminal court judge in Texas failed to disclose nearly $2 million in real estate holdings and claimed it would be "financially ruinous" to pay lawyers to fight misconduct charges that could get her removed from the bench.
Sharon Keller, presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, is seeking dismissal of charges by the state Commission on Judicial Conduct that she violated her duties in a death penalty case.
This is breaking news from the Statesman via email. Texas Criminal Court of Appeals Judge Sharon Keller will have to face a public hearing after receiving charges from the Commission on Judicial Conduct.
The state Commission on Judicial Conduct has charged Sharon Keller, the presiding judge of the state's highest criminal court, with bringing discredit upon the state judiciary for denying a death row prisoner the ability to file an after-hours appeal in 2007. Keller will face a formal, public hearing to answer the charges and could be removed from office, reprimanded or exonerated.
The State Bar poll can be an indicator of the coming elections, and the State Bar poll offers a hope of change for the two high courts in Texas, which both desperately need change.
Congratulations are first due to J.R. Molina, who is running for the Court of Criminal Appeals, place 4. Molina got 3229 votes, the most votes of any candidate in the race (937 more than Republican incumbent Paul Womack and about twice as many as Womack's Republican primary challenger, Robert Francis):
votes
3229 - J.R. Molina
2292 - Paul Womack
1616 - Robert Francis
831 - Dave Howard
Court of Criminal Appeals, place 4, could easily go Democratic in November.
Congratulations are also due to Linda Yanez, who got 346 more votes (over 14% more votes) than her Texas Supreme Court, place 8, primary opponent Susan Criss:
votes
3864 - Phil Johnson
2769 - Linda Yanez
2423 - Susan Criss
589 - Drew Shirley
If you add the votes for the Democratic candidates and compare them against the votes for the Republican incumbent, we win very easily 5192 to 3864. Texas Supreme Court, place 8, could also easily go Democratic in November.
More congratulations are due to Sam Houston, Democrat for Texas Supreme Court, place 8, who got 703 more votes (40% more) than his primary opponent Baltasar Cruz:
votes
4530 - Dale Wainwright
2456 - Sam Houston
1753 - Baltasar Cruz
989 - David Smith
If you add the Democratic votes plus the votes for Libertarian David Smith, we win 5198 to 4530, but the Libertarian vote is the margin which gives us the victory so we need to focus hard on this race.
The Houston Chronicle is reporting that "the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said Tuesday it will accept emergency e-mail filings in death penalty cases in an effort to avoid a repeat of the nationally controversial execution of Michael Richard."
This is a good development and will probably prevent a rogue judge like Sharon Keller from unethically and unilaterally refusing to accept an appeal on the day of an execution in the future without consulting the duty judge.
The new rules say that the decision to accept will be made by the "duty judge", who will "decide whether to accept delivery of the pleading on an emergency basis pursuant to TEX. R. APP. P. 9.2(a)(2)."
The duty judge for the Michael Richard execution was not consulted on the day of his execution. The decision to close the court at 5 and refuse to accept his appeal was made unilaterally by Sharon Keller, which is why she should be removed from office. She should have applied a basic set of ethical standards as is required in the Code of Judicial Conduct. By acting alone, and by not cooperating with the other judges on the court, she denied Richard his constitutional rights.
There will be a protest at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Friday, November 16, starting at 4:45 pm to call for the resignation of Sharon Keller. Her resignation or removal from office is the only way to restore integrity to the office of Presiding Judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
Today, State Rep Lon Burnam of Fort Worth sent a judicial complaint against Judge Sharon Keller to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. He is the second state legislator to file or sign on to a judicial complaint against Keller. Rep Harold Dutton was one of the 20 lawyers who signed the first complaint last week.
In other developments, the Waco Herald-Tribune wrote in an editorial today that "if Keller cannot be removed from her position, she should be disciplined for her outrageous behavior".
The Houston Chronicle Editorial Board published a strongly worded editorial yesterday calling for removal of Chief Justice Sharon Keller from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals saying "since she will not face the voters until 2012, the miscarriage of justice perpetrated by Chief Justice Keller can only be remedied by a recommendation by the Judicial Conduct Commission to the Texas Supreme Court that she be removed from office".
More than 600 people have signed on to our judicial complaint from general public members that we will file on Oct 30. You can sign too!
