Showdown in Austin This Friday for CCA Chief Justice Sharon Keller

Set back in March, the time has come. This Friday, June 18, 2010, in Austin, Texas, the hearing begins for Chief Justice Sharon Keller before the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct.

Sharon Keller Following the Best Defense is a Good Offense Approach

Keller’s response can be read online in two parts (Part One; Part Two) thanks to the Texas Lawyer.  Her latest salvo? A request that the Commission dismiss the matter in its entirety.

Immediately. The whole thing. That’s right. (She’s also appealing that $100,000 ethics fine that she’s been told to pay – the highest ethics fine in the State’s history).

Justice Keller: Allegations are Fiction

Apparently, Justice Keller believes that the charges she will be facing on Friday are “fiction” and that we should all just pooh-pooh everything that’s been filed thus far.

Even Judge David Berchelmann didn’t go so far as to write that the allegations were fictional when he basically let the Chief Justice off the hook in his findings from his fact-finding hearing last August.

Public Hearing – Standing Room Only

So, the hearing on Friday should be very, very interesting. It will be public. The examiners and Justice Keller’s attorney will present oral argument. We can bet it will be to a packed house.

After the argument, the 13 Commissioners will go behind doors to discuss and decide their decision. They will have three options: (1) remove her from elected office; (2) dismiss the charges against her; or (3) reprimand her (she gets cited as doing something bad, but keeps her job).

It’s Only the Most Powerful Criminal Judge in Texas, After All

Think of it. We’re only talking about the Chief Justice of the state’s highest criminal court here.  Is anyone else out there thinking Lady MacBeth (although the line’s really from Hamlet)?

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
–W. Shakespeare, Hamlet (III, ii, 239)