The strange case of Texas murderer Charles Dean Hood is mentioned, with links to blog and news coverage, in today's Blog Scan and News Scan. The decision of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is here. The court denies the affair-based claim, along with a nonsense double jeopardy claim, on the ground that "they do not meet the requirements of Article 11.071, § 5, for the consideration of subsequent claims." In Texas, as in most jurisdictions, there is an appeal, one collateral review, and only a narrow window for any further collateral reviews after that.

The court goes on to say, though, "Because of developments in the law regarding nullification instructions, this Court has determined that it would be prudent to reconsider the decision we issued in dismissing applicant’s second subsequent writ application. See Ex parte Hood, 211 S.W.3d 767(Tex. Crim. App. 2007)(No. AP-75,370)."

The primary development is likely the Supreme Court's 2007 decision three months later in Smith v. Texas. As with many old Texas cases, the state is still litigating in Hood the consequences of instructing juries in accordance with a statute the Supreme Court expressly upheld in Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262 (1976), a practice later found to violate the constitutional requirement the Court fabricated in Lockett v. Ohio, 438 U.S. 586 (1978).