Judge wants wrongful death lawsuit dropped
Headline News
The Texas judge accused of improperly denying a death row inmate a last-minute appeal has asked a federal judge to dismiss the wrongful death suit filed against her by the executed man's widow.
Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller contends that while she ordered the clerk's office closed promptly at 5 p.m., state law clearly gave attorneys for death row inmate Michael Wayne Richard the power to contact judges on the court directly.
In papers filed in U.S. district court in Austin, Keller said Richard's lawyers made no attempt to contact any judges on the court, even though three were available Sept. 25, the date of Richard's execution in 1986 rape and murder of Marguerite Dixon, a Houston-area mother of seven. Keller said the clerk's office was closed but the court's building remained open.
Richard's lawyers were in Houston. The court is in Austin.
Keller has garnered national attention for refusing to extend the court's closing time prior to Richard's execution, despite calls from Richard's attorneys alerting her office they were experiencing computer problems and begging for extra time. But in a motion, Keller said Texas law "provides a clear and unambiguous avenue for litigants to file documents with the (Court of Criminal Appeals) directly through any of its judges, so Richard did not need the CCA clerk's office to stay open after hours to file his motion."
This is the first time Keller has claimed Richard's lawyers could have directly gone to other judges on the court. She previously has tried to shift blame to Richard's lawyers by saying they had all day to file.
Jim Harrington, director of the Texas Civil Rights Project, called Keller's argument "shameless."
"Everyone knows that the key is the clerk's office," said Harrington, whose office is representing Richard's daughter, Doreen Anderson, as well as other attorneys who have filed complaints against Keller for her handling of the appeal.
"The clerks are the ones who intercept the calls, who say 'it's shut down,' " Harrington said. "The rules of procedure in the law are supposed to serve justice and here you have a case where a guy's life is at stake. It's literally a matter of life or death and to fall back on some off-the-wall assertion, 'go find a judge and file it that way' is absurd. It makes a farce of the law."
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Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC
A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party
Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party
However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.