Without comment, the Supreme Court on Monday denied review in the case of Texas death row inmate Charles Dean Hood, whose trial judge Verla Sue Holland was in a romantic relationship with county district attorney Tom O’Connell, who was prosecuting him.
The case drew worldwide attention, and his Supreme Court appeal was joined by former FBI director and judge William Sessions, former judges including Patricia Wald and John Gibbons, and ethicists and prosecutors nationwide, in amicus briefs filed by Arnold & Porter’s Lisa Blatt and Andrew Pincus of Mayer Brown.
