Texas court now taking death row appeals by e-mail

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A Texas court said it will accept emergency electronic filings for death row inmates, more than a month after a judge refused to keep the office open past closing time to receive appeals from a man who was executed hours later.

In a posting on its Web Site on Tuesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said it will accept emergency e-mail pleadings.

Michael Richard, 49, was executed by lethal injection on September 25, the same day the U.S. Supreme Court said it would decide whether that method violates a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Richard was the last person executed in the country, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Since then executions generally have been put on hold, awaiting the courts decision.

Texas has executed 405 people -- by far the most among U.S. states -- since the Supreme Court lifted a national ban on the practice in 1976.

Presiding Judge Sharon Keller of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin refused to allow Richard's attorneys to file last-minute pleadings on the question of the constitutionality of lethal injunction, said lawyers who filed a complaint against her.

Richard's attorneys had asked that the court clerk's office remain open 20 minutes past the 5 p.m. EST closing time because their computers had failed as they were preparing their pleadings.

Keller refused the request even though she was not the judge assigned to the case and other judges were prepared to stay late to consider the appeal, the lawyers said.

Richard, a convicted murderer, was executed about three hours later.

The court's action had drawn sharp criticism from some in the state's legal community, who said it violated Richard's right to access to the courts and to due process.

(Reporting by Anna Driver; editing by Vicki Allen)