Texas appeals court throws out death sentence for man in case dogged by DA-judge affair

Court throws out death penalty for Texas man

HOUSTON — The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday threw out the death sentence of a convicted killer whose case has been dogged by admissions of an affair between his trial judge and the prosecutor.

The court, in a split decision, said Charles Dean Hood was entitled to a new punishment trial because jurors were not allowed to properly consider mitigating evidence that could have convinced them he didn’t deserve a death sentence.

The ruling made no mention of the affair between Hood’s trial judge and prosecutor in Collin County in suburban Dallas. Last year, the same court refused Hood’s appeal for an entire new trial because of the affair admission.

Hood, 40, a former topless club bouncer, insists he’s innocent in the 1989 fatal shootings of Tracie Lynn Wallace, 26, and her boyfriend, Ronald Williamson, 46, at their home in Plano.

A day before he was scheduled to die in September 2008, the Austin-based appeals court gave Hood a reprieve based on the faulty jury instruction claim, which is unrelated to the once secret romantic relationship between Hood’s trial judge, Verla Sue Holland, and Tom O’Connell, the former district attorney in Collin County.

O’Connell was the county’s elected prosecutor from 1971-82 and 1987-2002. Holland was a state district judge from 1981-96 before moving on to the Court of Criminal Appeals, where she served before resigning in 2001.

The Wednesday ruling “recognized a clear flaw in the punishment phase of Mr. Hood’s case,” said Andrea Keilen, executive director of Texas Defender Service, which took Hood’s demand for a new trial to the U.S. Supreme Court in December.

But Keilen called the long-secret affair “the more troubling issue.”

“Today’s decision … does nothing to address or correct this egregious legal and ethical violation,” Keilen added.

A statement from the Collin County District Attorney’s Office noted the appeals court did not challenge the finding of Hood’s guilt and said the office would review the opinion before the new punishment trial.

“As we currently understand the case, however, it is likely we will again seek the death penalty,” the statement said.

Three of the nine judges dissented from Wednesday’s majority ruling, where the court said it was wading “once more into the murky waters” of the Texas death penalty sentencing rules, where capital trial jurors are asked questions to decide whether a convicted killer should be put to death.

Hood was convicted in 1990, after the first of several precedent-setting Texas death penalty cases at the U.S. Supreme Court began refining those jury instructions but before the Texas Legislature could rewrite laws to bring instructions into high court compliance. In the interim, trial judges submitted deliberation questions, known as “special issues,” to capital murder juries. Many of those death penalty sentences have since been thrown out on appeal.

Subsequent U.S. Supreme Court decisions on Texas jury instructions have resulted in a “conundrum (that) has produced starkly different descriptions and versions” of the development of law, the Texas appeals court said Wednesday.

“This is all very awkward,” Judge Cathy Cochran, writing for the majority, said. “Not only have the nine justices on the Supreme Court differed wildly in their view … the nine judges on this court have differed in exactly the same manner.”

Specifically in Hood’s case, the court said the “nullification instruction” given to his jury wasn’t sufficient for jurors to give “meaningful consideration and full effect to the mitigating evidence presented.” That instruction, which the Supreme Court later would reject as confusing, told a jury to answer “no” to one of two special issues if it found mitigating evidence that warranted sparing a defendant’s life.

At his trial, Hood’s lawyers presented evidence of life-changing injuries Hood suffered as a 3-year-old when a truck backed over him. They also said he had been beaten as a child.

Appeals Court Judge Michael Keasler, joined by two colleagues in a dissent, wrote Hood’s claim was late and improper.

“This is exactly the kind of behavior that the Legislature specifically sought to prohibit,” Keasler said. “No ‘conundrum’ exists for Hood because he is simply not entitled to relief in any forum.”

Hood was arrested in Indiana while driving Williamson’s $70,000 Cadillac, and his fingerprints were at the murder scene. Hood said he had permission to drive the car and his fingerprints were at the house because he had been living there.

Neither Holland nor O’Connell have been publicly disciplined by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct or the State Bar of Texas.

Their relationship apparently was an open secret in Collin County legal circles. In an affidavit related to the Hood case, a former assistant district attorney said it was common knowledge. In the legal wrangling to block Hood’s execution, the former couple acknowledged under oath they had an intimate relationship.