He says two of Keller's real estate holdings inadvertently were omitted from previous filings because of a simple error. When Keller had a previous year's report recopied, two pages listing those holding fell out of the stack; since that happened in 2002, those pages have not been replaced, Stack says. Keller is now checking with her father and her father's lawyer, Shack says, to make sure no other additional holdings mistakenly have not been reported.
You can almost hear the plaintive wail of "DADDY! TPJ's being MEAN to me. MAKE THEM STOP!"
Keep in mind the ghastly subtext to this story. Judge Keller earned the nickname "Killer Keller" well before this incident involving paperwork.
After the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider a challenge to the constitutionality of lethal injection, attorneys for Richard, a convicted murderer, had less than a day to craft an appeal for a stay of execution pending resolution of the issue before the high court. A ruling by the Texas court was necessary before the U.S. Supreme Court could consider his appeal.
Because of computer problems, Richard's lawyers requested that the Court of Criminal Appeals remain open past 5 p.m. to take the last-minute appeal. The judge assigned to the case, Cheryl Johnson, and two other judges had stayed late, anticipating that an appeal might be forthcoming before the execution scheduled later that evening. Without informing them of her decision, Judge Keller refused to allow the appeal to be filed after 5 p.m. Richard was executed hours later.
Even Keller's court colleagues expressed dismay at her actions. Justice Johnson was quoted in the complaint as angry, because "if I'm in charge of the execution, I ought to have known about these things, and I ought to have been asked whether I was willing to stay late and accept those filings." She indicated she would have accepted the brief, "because this is a death case." Justice Paul Womack told the Chronicle he waited in his office till 7 p.m. because "it was reasonable to expect an effort would be made in some haste in light of the Supreme Court. I wanted to be sure to be available in case it was raised."
Justice Keller's response to the uproar was that the lawyers should have filed the appeal on time. After all, she said, "they had all day." When an irreversible action like an execution is only hours away from occurring, Keller's adherence to a 9 a.m.-to-5 p.m. justice schedule is mind boggling. Civil judges are available at all hours to sign temporary restraining orders as are criminal judges to approve search warrants. Yet in the taking of a life, the most profound action a judge will ever be involved in, Keller wants to stick to banker's hours.
And this is the woman who wants a pass on two years election cycles worth of ethics violations because of the equivalent of Rosemary Wood's 18.5 minute tape gap, and is poormouthing to have the state pick up her lawyers fees.
