Sharon Keller is Texas' Judge Dread

But those opinions simply fell under the wide ideological umbrella of conservative jurisprudence—at least as it's defined in Texas—and they didn't make Keller a legal laughingstock. It was only when she discounted new DNA evidence that seemed to exonerate a convicted rapist that the mold was cast: It seemed that Keller wasn't just a conservative judge; she was, many thought, a terrible one.

"Is there any scientific evidence that in any way supports the state's contention?" a prosecuting attorney asked the jury, according to a Houston Press account of the trial. "Yes, there is."

Seven years later, new, more advanced DNA testing proved the prosecutor wrong. DNA taken from the semen found in Ogg did not match Criner. The prosecutors got the wrong guy. In 1998, a state judge ordered a new trial for Criner.

But Keller and a majority of judges on the Court of Criminal Appeals rejected calls for a new trial. Keller theorized that Criner might have been wearing a condom. Or maybe he simply failed to ejaculate. Never mind that the defendant was convicted on the basis that the semen found in the victim's body was his; Keller spun an entirely different story about how Criner raped his victim, an explanation that differed from the story that convinced a jury he was guilty.

"You wanted to laugh and cry at the same time," says Michael Charlton, Criner's attorney, about Keller's reasoning. "It made no sense, and you felt like everything you understood about your own profession was turned upside down."

So Criner, characterized by his attorney as nearly retarded, remained in prison, wondering if he'd languish behind bars his entire life. His mother, Jackie, tried as best she could to understand from her son's lawyers why he couldn't so much as get a new trial, but often she'd simply leave the room and weep. Her son's lawyers had evidence that refuted the prosecution's main argument against her son, and they couldn't receive a new trial.

But the simple logger's saga prompted a nationwide outcry. Syndicated columnist Clarence Page called on George W. Bush, then governor of Texas, to pardon Criner.

The PBS program Frontline also covered the case and landed a memorable interview with Keller. On national television, the judge referred to the 16-year-old victim as a "promiscuous girl," allowing for the possibility that someone else's semen could have been inside her other than the rapist's. To Keller, the DNA test simply didn't mean a thing.

"The evidence didn't show that he did not have sex with this woman," she told Frontline. "It can't. Just like the absence of fingerprints right here doesn't show that I didn't touch that chair. It can't show that he didn't do that."

Later in the program, Frontline asked Keller, "How do you prove you're innocent?"

"I don't know. I don't know," she replied.

Following Keller's appearance on Frontline, Charlton made 50 copies of the judge's interview and mailed it to the main papers in the state. At the time, Keller was running to become the presiding judge of the court against fellow Judge Tom Price, who accused her of turning the Court of Criminal Appeals into a national joke after the Frontline interview. Keller would go on to defeat Price, but Charlton kept his client in the news, which he realized was his best bet for setting him free.

"The slogan we adopted at the time was, If you have an innocence case, lawyers can't help you, " Charlton says. "Only journalists can."

Of course, it doesn't hurt to have Barry Scheck on your side either. The former O.J. Simpson lawyer, who has spent a good part of his career exposing wrongful convictions, joined the Criner defense team shortly after the first DNA test seemed to exonerate him. Scheck asked for an inventory of everything that was found at the original crime scene, including a cigarette butt left near the victim. When the DNA from the cigarette did not match Criner's, and a new round of publicity about his case ensued, Bush pardoned him.