Fire Judge Sharon Keller!

Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Sharon Keller's actions may've cost a man his life:

A Texas judge who closed her court before a death row inmate could file an appeal plans to testify at the ethics trial where she faces charges that could end her career.

Judge Sharon Keller, the presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, is on trial herself nearly two years after refusing to keep the court open past 5 p.m. on Sept. 25, 2007, with Michael Wayne Richard's execution imminent and his lawyers scrambling to file an appeal.

Charged with five counts of judicial misconduct, Keller sat quietly at the defense table Monday, only standing to acknowledge that she planned to testify. She could take the stand as early as Tuesday.

State investigators opened the special hearing by accusing Keller of "willfully" circumventing protocol by ordering the court closed at the normal hour. Her attorney said Keller was simply referring to the time the building closed, and that another judge inside also may have known about the pending appeal.

In the nation's busiest death-penalty state, where Keller has been mocked by critics as "Sharon Killer" for her tough-on-crime reputation, the day began with capital punishment opponents in the gallery and Richard's family members arriving toward the end.

"When the government has a death penalty, it is essential that there be not the perception but the reality that it is administered error-free," said Mike McKetta, the lead lawyer for the state Commission on Judicial Conduct.

Richard, who was condemned for the 1986 rape and murder of a Houston-area nurse, never had his appeal reach the courthouse that day and was executed hours later.

A Republican who has served on the court since 1994, Keller is the highest-ranking judge in Texas to be put on trial by the commission.

As many people already know Texas has long been the death penalty capital of the world and Judge Keller has a well-earned reputation for helping to keep it that way. But there is no excuse for Keller to close off an appeal because it going to be 20 minutes late. Granted we ask that our judges not have empathy, but this wasn't about deciding a case, it about a judge more interested in protecting her rep, screw all else. Sharon Keller should never be allowed to serve on the bench again.