[Michael Richard]'s lawyers, all volunteers, decided to write a new appeal for consideration in state court, raising the claim about lethal injections. It is well known now that Sharon Keller, the chief judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, refused to allow us to file the pleadings at 5:30 p.m., when we finished preparing them. (The Texas court, unlike the Supreme Court, does not accept electronic filings, and a series of computer crashes in our office in Houston delayed our preparation of 10 hard copies of the 100-page petition and thus our ability to deliver them on time to the court in Austin.) We pleaded with the court at least three times to stay open, but Keller would not make an exception to the policy that the clerk's office closes at 5. Keller has correctly been criticized, even vilified, for this decision. But the focus on Keller should not absolve the others who share responsibility for this preventable travesty.