On February 24, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals over­turned the death sen­tence of Charles Dean Hood because the jury was improp­er­ly instruct­ed about poten­tial­ly mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence at his tri­al. Hood’s case more recent­ly made nation­al news when a pri­or extra­mar­i­tal affair between the tri­al judge and the pros­e­cu­tor was revealed. In 2008, even after the judge and the pros­e­cu­tor admit­ted to their inti­mate rela­tion­ship, the Court of Criminal Appeals con­clud­ed that Hood should be exe­cut­ed any­way. Hood’s attor­neys have recent­ly peti­tioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review the con­flict of inter­est in this case. Twenty-one for­mer judges and pros­e­cu­tors and 30 legal ethics experts have filed ami­cus briefs stat­ing that the rela­tion­ship between the judge and the pros­e­cu­tor severe­ly under­mined the integri­ty of the pro­ceed­ings. The Court has yet to act on the request, which could result in a new tri­al on guilt, as well as on sen­tenc­ing, as now required by the Court of Criminal Appeals for other reasons.

The recent Court of Criminal Appeals deci­sion held that jurors should have been able to ful­ly con­sid­er Hood’s learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties and a seri­ous injury he sus­tained at an ear­ly age. Mark White, a for­mer gov­er­nor of Texas, said the Texas court should have focused on the broad­er prob­lem of fun­da­men­tal due process: ​“the court’s judges were ​‘not shoot­ing at the right tar­get’ by focus­ing on the issue and leav­ing aside the ques­tion of con­flicts of inter­est.” Hood was con­vict­ed in 1990 of fatal­ly shoot­ing two peo­ple he lived with in Plano.

(A. Liptak, ​“Questions of an Affair Tainting a Trial,” New York Times, February 22, 2010; J. Schwartz, ​“Death Penalty is Thrown Out In Texas Murders,” New York Times, February 24, 2010). See Arbitrariness. Read the ethi­cists’ ami­cus brief and the judges’ ami­cus brief.

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