The Texas Supreme Court this morning denied Judge Sharon Keller’s request to throw out last month’s public rebuke for her role in a botched 2007 death row appeal.
Later today, Keller’s lawyers are expected to file a separate appeal challenging the “public warning” given by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct. That appeal will ask Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson to name, by random drawing, three appeals court justices to review whether the warning was justified.
Today is the deadline for requesting the three-judge panel, which apparently would hold its own hearing — with witnesses, cross-examination and exhibits. (I wrote about the confusion regarding this appellate process last month.)
The Supreme Court did not elaborate or give reasons for its 8-0 ruling. Justice Nathan Hecht, who successfully challenged a public rebuke by the commission in 2006, did not participate.
In other words, we get to re-litigate everything all over again. All because she refuses to accept the little wrist slap she was given. Great use of tax dollars there. The Trib has more.
UPDATE: Grits tries his best to make sense of it all.