What can and should we take away from the "trial" of Texas Judge Sharon Keller?

I have not closely followed the controversy surrounding Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Sharon Keller because I have never been confident that her actions on the day the Supreme Court granted cert in the Baze lethal injection case — or the vocal complaints about her actions that day — reflected anything more than the usual sturm und drang that surrounds the death penalty in Texas. Nevertheless, the controversy rages on, as evidenced by this New York Times report on the start of Judge Keller's "trial" yesterday:

The highest-ranking criminal judge in Texas, the woman who presides over the most active execution chamber in the country, sat at a defense table on Monday to face charges of intentionally denying a condemned man access to the legal system.

The judge, Sharon Keller of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, took her seat before a gallery crowded with bloggers, lawyers and death penalty protesters. Outside the courthouse, demonstrators called for her ouster. Inside, lawyers on both sides emphasized that capital punishment was not on trial.

But to some, Judge Keller has come to embody the practice. An intensely private former member of the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office, she won election to the court in 1994 and to the post of presiding judge in 2000. She has cultivated a reputation for rulings favorable to the prosecution in death penalty cases.

On Sept. 25, 2007, Judge Keller put in a 10-hour workday and went home around 4 p.m. to meet a repairman. That morning the United States Supreme Court had effectively suspended lethal injection as a manner of execution by accepting a challenge to its constitutionality in a Kentucky case. Largely on the basis of the justices’ action, lawyers for a Texas death row inmate were putting together an appeal to stave off execution. An assigned duty judge was waiting at the courthouse for any last-minute appeal on the inmate’s behalf.

Around 4:45 p.m., the general counsel of Judge Keller’s court called her to relate a request to file paperwork after 5 p.m., the usual closing time for the court clerk’s office. Judge Keller replied that the clerk’s office closed at 5 p.m. A few hours later, the inmate was executed.

As the story behind the execution spread, defense lawyers, editorial boards and legislators called for Judge Keller’s removal. In February, the State Commission on Judicial Conduct filed formal charges. The case was assigned to a special master, Judge David Berchelmann Jr. of the district court here in Bexar County, for the civil fact-finding proceeding that opened Monday.

In written arguments, the commission contends that Judge Keller circumvented normal procedures, which provide for after-hours appeals in capital cases. Judge Keller responds that the lawyers for the inmate, Michael Richard, a convicted murderer who made no claim of innocence, should have filed their paperwork with the assigned duty judge rather than trying to go through the clerk’s office.

The trial, expected to last most of the week, promises to unfold as a finely wrought dance around the details of an afternoon’s timeline.....

A lawyer for Judge Keller, Charles L. Babcock, argued that the entire case amounted to a few innocent, misunderstood words spoken on the telephone. “Judge Keller is an honorable, competent, popularly elected judge who believes in and follows the rule of law,” Mr. Babcock said.



As suggested by the title of this post, I am not sure what to take away from the trial of Judge Keller. I am sure, however, that Scott at Grits for Breakfast is likely to provide a sober and shrewd perspective on this case. Consider, for example, this post at Grits, titled "Sharon Keller misconduct trial more about judicial activism than the death penalty."