USA - Texas. 22 former judges and prosecutors have urged Texas Governor Rick Perry to delay the execution of Charles Dean Hood

22 former judges and prosecutors have urged Texas Governor Rick Perry to delay the execution of Charles Dean Hood who has been granted a hearing that will take place 2 days after he is put to death. In a letter sent today to the Texas governor, the 22, including the former chief judge of the federal Third Circuit Court of Appeal and the former attorneys general of Maryland and Tennessee, called the setting of Hood's hearing date "inexplicable." The judges asked Perry to postpone the execution of Hood, 39, by 30 days. "We write because our long experience as jurists and law enforcement officials leads us to believe that justice cannot be served unless the courts are able to consider whether Mr. Hood's conviction and sentence are invalid." Hood is scheduled to be executed on September 10, but a court set a hearing for September 12 to examine defense arguments that he was not given a fair trial. The court will hear testimony from a prosecutor affirming that his colleague who was prosecuting the case was romantically involved with the judge who sentenced Hood. "It is an irrevocable wrong to send a man to his death without ever hearing this critical evidence," the 22 judges wrote to Perry. "We have no doubt that this relationship would have had a significant impact on the ability of the judicial system to accord Mr. Hood a fair and impartial trial," they wrote. A Governor's Office spokeswoman said Perry had received the letter but had not yet made a decision in the case. In a concurring opinion, 4 judges on the Court of Criminal Appeals had said that information about the reported affair was available years ago, but that Hood's lawyers never raised the issue. They said the affidavit from the former assistant district attorney didn't add significant new information about the reported affair. Hood was convicted of the 1989 fatal shooting of his boss Ronald Williamson and Williamson's girlfriend, Traci Wallace.