By KERA News & Wire Services
Dallas, TX –
A Texas judge who closed her court before a death row inmate's last-minute appeal was complete says she'd do the same thing again. Judge Sharon Keller's comment came today in her second day of testimony in her misconduct trial in San Antonio.
Keller's the presiding judge of the state's top criminal appeals court, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. But her career is on the line with this misconduct trial.
Lawyers for convicted killer Michael Wayne Richard had asked for more time to file an appeal on the day of his execution. They sought a reprieve based on a U.S. Supreme Court decision that morning to review whether Kentucky's means of lethal injection was constitutional.
Keller received a phone call at 4:45 p.m. asking to keep the Court of Criminal Appeals open past 5 p.m. She said no twice in the conversation, which lasted less than two minutes.
Richard was executed at 8:23 p.m. in Huntsville that day for the 1986 rape and slaying of a Houston-area nurse and mother of seven. Keller faces five counts of judicial misconduct that could lead to her removal from the bench.
Woman jailed after striking wheelchair-bound boy
Authorities say a 23-year-old woman has been arrested after a scuffle with a wheelchair-bound 13-year-old boy at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children.
Mikka Shardai Cline, of Waco, was charged with injury to a child in connection with the struggle over a soccer ball on Tuesday night.
The boy's uncle said he was trying to retrieve the ball, which he had purchased for the boy, from a bush on hospital grounds. Cline and her sister were also trying to get the ball. The Dallas Morning News reports the boy had a pre-surgical medical halo screwed into his skull.
DPS announces arrest of a Top 10 fugitive
Extradition is pending for a Texas Top 10 Most Wanted suspect caught in Mexico and accused of killing of his estranged wife in Houston.
The Texas Department of Public Safety on Wednesday announced the arrest of 42-year-old Esequiel Rios Villareal. He was sought over the February 2006 shooting death of Benedicta Gonzales.
DPS says Villareal, who was arrested Aug. 11 in Huetamo, Michoacan, faces extradition proceedings in the next 60 days. Villareal previously served prison time for the 1990 slaying of a man, also in Harris County.
Next space shuttle launch set for next week
NASA will try to launch space shuttle Discovery next week.
Senior officials set Tuesday as the launch date following a two-day flight review that ended Wednesday. Much of the discussion focused on the large amount of foam insulation that came off the fuel tank during last month's launch. Managers decided the tank for Discovery's upcoming flight is fine.
Discovery and its seven-member crew will haul equipment and supplies to the international space station, including a new treadmill named after Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert. Earlier this year, the comedian tried to get a future space station chamber named after him. NASA chose Tranquility instead, and Colbert had to settle for the treadmill.
Liftoff time is 1:36 a.m.