Judge Slammed For Allowing An Execution

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Rarely are computer problems matters of life and death. But they were in Texas a month ago, the New York Times reports, and now a judge who allowed a man to be executed because his technical-difficulty-plagued lawyers couldn't get to the court in time to file a final appeal is drawing a national outcry.

Sharon Keller, the presiding judge of the Texas Court of Appeals, turned away the last appeal of a death row inmate because the rushed filing was delayed past the court's 5 p.m. closing time. As a result, Michael Richard was executed for a 1986 sexual assault and murder - the last person to die in Texas while the U.S. Supreme Court reviews the constitutionality of lethal injection.

Keller has said that she didn't know that Richard's defense lawyers in Houston were having computer problems when they asked the court for 20 more minutes to deliver their final state appeal to Austin hours before the scheduled execution on Sept. 25. Without a definitive ruling from the state court, the lawyers could not properly appeal to the United States Supreme Court to block the execution.

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers filed a complaint against Keller - the first judicial complaint the group has ever filed.

Now lawyers' groups are filing complaints against Keller left and right. One group is circulating a petition calling for the court to accept electronic filings.

Keller defended her actions in the Austin American-Statesman, saying "I just said, 'We close at 5.' I didn't really think of it as a decision so much as a statement."

Two days after Richard was executed, the Supreme Court blocked another lethal injection in Texas, and there have been no executions since.

Giuliani's Advisor Advocates Bombing Iran, ASAP

The New York Times reports that "America's Mayor" Rudy Giuliani has been getting foreign policy counsel lately from "a particularly hawkish group of advisers and neoconservative thinkers."

Most controversial among them is Norman Podhoretz, a prominent neoconservative who advocates bombing Iran "as soon as it is logistically possible." Others include Daniel Pipes, director of the Middle East Forum, who has called for profiling Muslims at airports and scrutinizing American Muslims in law enforcement; and Michael Rubin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who has written in favor of revoking the United States' ban on assassination.

The campaign says Giuliani's not swallowing all these guys' ideas; but the guys' themselves argue otherwise. Podhoretz told the New York Observer that he recently met with Giuliani to discuss his new book, in which he advocates bombing Iran as part of a larger struggle against "Islamofacism," and "there is very little difference in how he sees the war and I see it."

Asked in a recent interview whether he agreed with Podhoretz that the time to bomb Iran has already come, he said: "From the information I do have available, which is all public source material, I would say that is not correct, we are not at that stage at this point. Can we get to that stage? Yes. And is that closer than some of the Democrats believe? I believe it is."

Chaparral Lover Reconsiders Burning Bush

There's just something about standing on the roof of your house battling a wildfire with a garden hose that takes the charm out of the dry, scrubby vegetation that's feeding the blaze - even if you're the founder of an institute crated to defend it.

So discovers the Wall Street Journal when it checks in with Richard Halsey, founding director of the California Chaparral Institute. Halsey has spent the four years defending the existence of chapparal, the term given to the wide variety of shrubby plants trees and bushes that dot Southern California's hilly landscape. His occasionally poetic Web site, Californiachaparral.com, compares the vegetation to a "carpet of green velvet."

He started his crusade in 2003 after the area's devastating Cedar fire, when fire officials began advocating increasingly aggressive measures like clear-cutting strips of chaparral to create fire breaks to minimize the destructive potential of wildfires.

"The problem is not the chaparral," he said this week. "The problem is people and the way they decide to place houses."

But after his century-old house had a brush with destruction, he admitted, "I have a greater appreciation now for the impact of vegetation near structures than I did before."

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[mobydick14]

Why this judge''s conduct seems so outrageous is the finality of the death penalty. I suspect that there would be far less complaining if, as happens all the time, somebodies'' rights are lost because papers are filed "late." Can''t you just see some moronic "we close at five" judge telling a civil litigant that their rights are gone because they didn''t file papers on time when the entire San Diego Court House system was closed due to fires? I suppose stupidity at that level ("the law is the law") might make national news. Take time to read Victor Hugo''s book, Le Miserables, at imagine the plight of the the hero who realizes he''s sentenced to the same amount of time for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving family as is the scum who simply sociopathically steals. The law isn''t blind, nor should it be stupidly, mindlessly and rididly applied. Anyone who thinks it should might consider a small walk in the victims shoes.

[maedean]

What kind of appeal did this animal give to the one he killed and assaulted.That would be none. So why should anyone care that he was put to death like he was sentenced. Now you sick ***** feel sorry for this man and blame a judge. Why do you forget what these people have done and think they have the right to anything???How about the victim do any of you remember them or there family ???? Has any of the money that is wasted on these worthless scum bags on death row ever been used to help the victims family or paid toward there funerals. Nope just millions spent on appeals. If you are going to sentence them to death mean it and kill them within a month. No rights no nothing just like they gave there victims.

[ninerman168]

I''m not sure what kind of a nut could feel sorry for someone who has been found guilty by his peers and sentenced to death.They appeal the all the way to the end.All it does is tie up an already overburdened court system.The only question that I have is what takes so long to get rid of these animals.Why should I have to pay for their sorry existence.I''m sure that these animals carefully listened to the appeals of their victims before they butchered them.

[matter77]

Don''t believe everything you read. The fact is that, in EVERY CASE in which someone is sentenced to death, it is appealed and appealed and appealed, every trick in the book by every lawyer trying to make a name for themself, every anti-capital punishment organization on the planet, continues day in and day out for years, until it is finally over. So, OF COURSE there will have been another action at the last minute.

Use your brain! Why was it this incident at the last minute that caused a man to be executed? How long did this go on, and why isn''t the jury and the umpteenth judge or the Governor, or the people of Texas to blame??? Why is it assumed the execution was in error? BECAUSE THAT''S THE WAY THE STORY WAS WRITTEN!

Yeah, some stupid person with a computer glitch was to blame. After all this time. Yeah, makes for good copy. Get everyone upset. It''s a bunch of garbage.

[scottcobb99]

www.sharonkiller.com

If you are as shocked as we were by Judge Sharon Keller saying "We close at 5" and refusing to accept an appeal 20 minutes after 5 PM by lawyers representing a man about to be executed, then sign on to the complaint at sharonkiller.com. We will submit this complaint to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct on October 30, 2007. Anyone can sign the complaint.

[scottcobb99]

www.sharonkiller.com

If you are as shocked as we were by Judge Sharon Keller saying "We close at 5" and refusing to accept an appeal 20 minutes after 5 PM by lawyers representing a man about to be executed, then sign on to the complaint at sharonkiller.com. We will submit this complaint to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct on October 30, 2007. Anyone can sign the complaint.

[missingamerica]

So to summarize:

At best, Justice in Texas works office hours only.

Giuliani has decided he''d rather be an animal lover than a President so he''s adopting those most dangerous mutts of all: Chickenhawk war pigs.

and, last but not least:

"High Chaparral" makes a better TV show than a neighbor.