Supreme Court turns down appeal of Texas convict in case dogged by DA-judge affair

Court denies Texan’s appeal over DA-judge affair

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has left in place the conviction of a man, despite the admission of an affair between his trial judge and the prosecutor.

The justices did not comment Monday in turning down the appeal of Charles Dean Hood. A Texas appeals court threw out Hood’s death sentence earlier this year on a point unrelated to the affair.

Hood was seeking an entirely new trial based on the once-secret romantic relationship between the trial judge, Verla Sue Holland, and Tom O’Connell, the former district attorney in Collin County.