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Colleagues Vie to Be Presiding Judge on Top Criminal Court

Posted on: Monday, 30 January 2006, 09:00 CST

By Max B. Baker, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas

Jan. 30--In the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' official portrait, Judges Sharon Keller and Tom Price are sitting next to each other.

Everyone is smiling.

Those smiles could disappear -- along with the collegiality among the judges at the state's highest criminal court -- when Keller and Price square off again in the March 7 Republican Party primary race to be court's presiding judge.

Keller defeated Price in her first bid to be presiding judge six years ago. During the race, Keller's judicial experience and Price's work ethic were questioned.

Since then, the gulf between the two has grown wider, with Price saying he has moderated his views on the death penalty and on providing legal counsel to the poor while Keller has continued to represent the court's tough-on-crime approach to the law.

"I'd like to take the court in a different direction," Price said. "Judge Keller is still far to the right and unbending."

Keller defends her tenure as the court's top judge, saying that she has chaired a statewide task force on indigent defense and that she hopes to start a project to help the mentally ill who are trapped in the criminal justice system.

To make sure the scales of justice are balanced, she said, the court recently pushed for more money to support those looking into innocence claims, including establishing an innocence network at the state's law schools.

"I am on the conservative end of the court, but it is not a deeply divided court," Keller said. "It is not as divided as it used to be."

Price, a former Dallas County judge, was elected in 1996 and won another six-year term in 2002. Judges on the court of criminal appeals earn $150,000 a year, and the presiding judge is paid $152,500.

Price opposes the execution of the mentally retarded and those who committed crimes when they were under 17. Price also said he supports nonpartisan election of judges and a moratorium on death penalty cases out of Harris County because of the troubled testing from its crime lab.

"The evidence from that lab can't be trusted," Price said. "We shouldn't execute people who are innocent, and if there is any question about the evidence in court, there should be a moratorium until the system corrects itself."

Keller, a former Dallas County prosecutor, became the first woman elected to the court in 1994. She said she doesn't think it is "good for the court for one of the judges to try and unseat the other." She said it makes the operation of the court "uncomfortable."

Previously, Keller had upset Price when she unofficially kept track of his absences from the court. Price, who until recently lived in Dallas to take care of his son and father, filed a complaint with the State Judicial Conduct Commission.

Keller also has borne the brunt of national and statewide criticism over the past few years for the court's decisions on execution of the mentally retarded, the racial makeup of juries, actual-innocence claims and what some say is the "results-oriented" approach of the court to bend the law to meet a desired outcome.

The presiding judge said she supports granting relief on innocence claims when the record supports it. She said the court also does its best to follow the U.S. Supreme Court's lead on issues such as the death penalty.

"I think the court has been unfairly criticized in the past," Keller said. "We do our best to follow the decisions from the Supreme Court when they rule on a case. If they change their mind, we can't predict that."

The winner will face Democrat J.R. Molina of Fort Worth in the November election.

Max B. Baker, (817) 390-7714 maxbaker@star-telegram.com

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Copyright (c) 2006, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas

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Source: Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, Texas)

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