Controversial execution judge to update finance data



Move comes after liberal group files ethics, criminal complaints 
against Keller

By JIM VERTUNO
ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 31, 2009,

AUSTIN — The top judge on the state’s Court of Criminal Appeals will 
file new personal financial disclosures to show real estate holdings 
that she had left off in recent years, her attorney said on Tuesday.

A liberal watchdog group had filed ethics and criminal complaints 
against Presiding Judge Sharon Keller after reports that she did not 
disclose property that the Dallas Morning News reported is worth 
nearly $2 million.
Texans for Public Justice filed the complaints in Austin against 
Keller, a Republican, with the Texas Ethics Commission and the Travis 
County attorney’s office.
“We’re going to make a corrected report,” Keller attorney Ed Shack 
said. “There’s some items that need to be put on her report. The 
judge met today with her father and her father’s lawyer and they are 
determining what property is in her name.”
Keller is already facing misconduct charges from the state Judicial 
Conduct Commission for failing to keep her office open late the night 
Michael Wayne Richard was executed. His lawyers have said that 
prevented them from filing an appeal. Keller has said attorneys for 
Richard, who raped and murdered a woman in 1986, had other options to 
appeal.
The latest complaints come after the newspaper reported that Keller’s 
routine annual financial disclosures did not include the property.
Although separate from the misconduct charge, Keller’s financial 
disclosures are relevant in that case. She has argued that the 
misconduct charges violate her constitutional right to counsel 
because the state refuses to allow attorney Chip Babcock to represent 
her at taxpayer expense and paying for her defense herself would be 
financially ruinous.
Babcock has said he’s willing to represent Keller for almost nothing, 
but that the Ethics Commission has not clarified whether that was an 
ethics violation.
A sworn statement Keller filed with the Texas Ethics Commission last 
year did not disclose her ownership interest in seven residential and 
commercial properties in Dallas and Tarrant counties. The newspaper 
said those properties are valued at roughly $1.9 million.
Among Keller’s unlisted properties are two Dallas homes valued 
together at just over $1 million. Keller is listed as sole owner 
under Sharon Batjer, her married name. She divorced in 1982. Another 
omission is commercial land next to Keller’s Drive-In, a landmark 
Dallas hamburger restaurant operated since 1965 by the judge’s 
father, Jack.
Keller’s Ethics Commission filing listed income of more than 
$275,000, including her annual salary of $152,500. County tax records 
valued properties she did claim, including her Austin home, at 
roughly $1 million.
At least some of the properties missing on Keller’s disclosure forms 
had been listed several years ago, but were inadvertently dropped, 
Shack said.
Failing to file in compliance with personal financial disclosure laws 
can bring fines up to $10,000. County Attorney David Escamilla could 
also seek Class B misdemeanor charges that carry up to six months in 
jail and $2,000 in fines.
Shack said he was still reviewing Keller’s financial disclosures and 
did not know if filing new ones would allow her to avoid any fines.
Texans for Public Justice Director Craig McDonald said Keller is 
hiding her assets while asking taxpayers to pay her legal bills.
“Unlike many of the defendants who have appeared before her, Keller 
can afford to hire a top-notch attorney,” McDonald said.
Keller has been on the court since 1994.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6352587.html