Oral arguments in Sharon Keller removal proceedings this morning

I'm headed up to the State Commission on Judicial Conduct this morning to hear oral arguments in Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller's removal proceedings. Go here for all the filings in the case. See also AP's preview that's in several papers around the state this morning.

UPDATE: Back from the event, which lasted a little more than five hours en toto. I was somewhat surprised there wasn't a bigger crowd there. The room was perhaps a little more than 2/3 full at its height and any protesters remained outside. Media coverage was also lighter than I'd expected. The usual suspects among reporters were there, but just four TV cameras and no noticeable national news presence. The Commission will likely take a vote today, but the results won't be released publicly until sometime in the future. Keller, for her part, wore an emotionless mask throughout the hearing.

Keller's attorney Chip Babcock spent the majority of his time (80% by one commissioner's estimate) criticizing the Texas Defender Service and particularly attorney David Dow for mendacity and seeking to railroad Judge Keller out of office. He also criticized the Texas Civil Rights Project for relying on inaccurate media reports in drafting its complaint to the SCJC. These charges had taken an "almost unspeakable toll" on Keller "personally, professionally, and financially," he said, adding that all the allegations against her are a "pack of lies." The entire proceeding, he opined, was a "calculated strategy by some people to take a popularly elected judge and drive her from the bench." He also emphasized that Special Master David Berchelmann found Keller had violated no "unwritten rule," distinguishing such (as did the fact finder) from an unwritten, longstanding protocol at the CCA that Judge Keller said in a deposition she knew about and was considered mandatory.

Examiner Mike McKetta, by contrast, portrayed following that "mandatory protocol" as a "judicial duty" whose violation breached judicial canons. He observed that Judge Berchelmann, the fact finder, failed to issue findings on most of the questions about which the examiner asked him to rule, so McKetta asked the Commission to make those findings in his stead. Cleverly, in a power point presentation he proved up the main elements of the alleged offenses almost entirely from Judge Keller's own testimony - her admissions about what she knew and when she knew it, etc. - arguing she engaged in "gross carelessness." He also emphasized the Judge's defiant insistence that she'd do again today what she did back in 2007. Keller, he said, "persists in the belief that mandatory rules are not applicable to her." TDS' role is irrelevant, McKetta argued, since Judge Keller at the time she made the decision in Richard's case didn't know who was the defendant or who represented him. In perhaps the strongest statement in his presentation, McKetta said this is "not the right person or attitude" for the Presiding Judge on the state's highest criminal court.

Both attorneys were on their A games, but Babcock suffered in a couple of key moments from what they call "bad facts," particularly when he claimed Keller didn't really mean she would do the same thing again, that she isn't a "recidivist," but Justice Jan Patterson read back to him Keller's exact words from the testimony transcript to show he'd mischaracterized the Q&A and the examiner's interpretation was accurate.

Even so, it's exceedingly difficult to handicap results based on reactions from commissioners. I honestly can't begin to guess how they'll rule. One of the public, non-attorney members observed that there seemed to be a "shocking amount of dysfunction in the court," and a couple of others posed harsh questions - particularly a judge on the panel who called Babcock on the carpet for over-the-top comparisons in recent briefs of commission proceedings against Keller to Soviet show trials. Two other commissioners, though, seemed eager to cast aspersions on TDS and David Dow, and one of Judge Berchelmann's colleagues from San Antonio wondered if Keller's behavior must be overtly malicious to be "willful." Trying to interpret such questions to predict votes amounts to little more than tea leaf reading. I'd guess it won't be a unanimous vote, but I'm hard-pressed to say which way they'll go. And even if a majority of commissioners do hold against her, then the question becomes: What is the sanction?

See initial MSM coverage from the Austin Statesman, the Fort Worth Star Telegram, the Dallas News, Texas Lawyer, and AP.

MORE: Here's a link to the Examiner Mike McKetta's power point presentation. AND MORE: The Texas Tribune has audio excerpts from Keller's attorney.