The affidavits in the Charles Hood case: allegations implicating dozens of lawyers

I've been following the Charles Hood case, but hadn't been able to read the source documents. I tracked them down finally. You can find them here at the Texas Defender website. You will want to read the affidavits in the back of the filing.

In a nutshell, the testimony is that the prosecutor and judge were romantically involved and that dozens of local lawyers knew it and were afraid to reveal it over the years. According to the testimony, the local lawyers were terrified of calling the judge and prosecutor on their behavior. It was partly fear and partly the lack of definitive proof.

It's one thing to pretend the rumors don't exist if you're appearing before the judge on a small matter on a law and motion calendar. But for the entire legal community to ignore it in a capital defense case with a death verdict is an appalling story. There will also be hard questions for Hood's defense team, which concedes that they were aware of the rumor back at the time of the trial.

And if the prosecutors' office that was pushing for execution this week includes lawyers who knew of the romantic relationship, they ought to be disciplined. If the testimony holds up, the behavior of the judge and prosecutor may even have committed criminal acts.

These aren't allegations; these are claims supported by testimony -- albeit largely second-hand testimony. At the same time, I must stress that we haven't heard the testimony from the accused judge or prosecutor, and we'll want to hear that. (Will they say that they had an intense friendship but nothing romantic? Will they deny any relationship at all?)

But if the affidavits are supported, we will need to do a serious study of the social psychology that caused this travesty.

Comments

[Andrew Perlman]

Thanks, John, for digging deeper.

There are a variety of studies that show that people are much less likely to react to a situation if they know that other people can also see the problem and could take action themselves.

In this case, if a lot of lawyers had heard about the affair and those lawyers perceived that other lawyers also knew about the affair, each lawyer would have felt that someone else should make the report. Indeed, each lawyer would have thought: "This is widely known. Someone else will make the report, especially someone who is more knowledgeable about the details than I am. After all, why should I put myself out there accusing powerful people of misconduct if I didn't see it myself? If someone has proof, that person will step forward."

Of course, it's very difficult to have proof that two people are sleeping with each other, so nobody does anything. That's not a justification for why nobody did anything, but it may be a plausible explanation.

[John Steele]

Andy,

When I read the affidavits I immediately thought that the issue needed your analysis -- but didn't want to call you out and hand you an assignment you might not want to take. The story told in the affidavits cries out for a social psychology explanation.