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Texas court grants stay of high-profile execution

HOUSTON
Wed Sep 10, 2008 3:46am EDT
Charles Dean Hood's offender information is seen in a handout photo. REUTERS/Texas Department of Criminal Justice/Handout

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A Texas court on Tuesday stayed the execution of Charles Dean Hood, the day before he was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection for two murders, a Texas newspaper reported.

U.S.

Last week Texas' attorney general asked for a review of allegations by the condemned inmate that the judge and prosecutor in the case were having an affair.

Hood, who was scheduled to go to the Texas death chamber on Wednesday, alleged that former Collin County Judge Verla Sue Holland and Collin County District Attorney Thomas O'Connell had a secret, intimate relationship.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin, Texas, granted the stay, but for reasons unrelated to the allegations of the affair, the Dallas Morning News reported.

Instead, the state's highest criminal court's stay was to consider an appeal Hood's attorneys filed over the summer alleging that the jury that convicted him to die by lethal injection received improper instructions, the paper reported.

Hood, 39, was convicted of shooting to death his boss and the boss's girlfriend in 1989. He stole the man's car, some jewelry and credit cards, fled and was caught in Indiana, according to trial evidence.

(Editing by Eric Walsh)
U.S.


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