In Re Holcomb

in which Chief Justice JEFFERSON, Justice HECHT, Justice MEDINA and Justice GREEN joined.

In this companion case to In re Francis,1 another candidate for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals filed a petition containing a defect that was overlooked. Out of hundreds of signatures gathered for his petition, by chance two volunteers obtained signatures from the same nine people. Though a careful review of the petition would have disclosed the duplications, neither the candidate nor the Republican State Chair noticed them. As a result, the petition was five signatures short of the statutory minimum.…