The all-Republican Court of Criminal Appeals has undergone extensive turnover since AG Ken Paxton began targeting incumbent judges.
Thursday’s execution was blocked by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals “pending further order” from the court.
A district judge provided two recommendations to the Court of Criminal Appeals in 2024, but the court’s process provides no details on when it will rule on the death row inmate’s innocence.
Clarence Curtis Jordan’s attorney said the intellectually disabled man didn’t have a lawyer to work on his behalf for nearly four decades.
In his appeal, James Broadnax, who also wants a new trial, included a signed confession by his cousin saying he committed the 2008 Garland murders.
Dissenting judges expressed frustration over a lack of clarity on why the case of David Leonard Wood, whose execution in March was halted, was remanded to the lower court.
Critics fear increased election prosecutions could intimidate voters and local election officials. Attorney General Ken Paxton has long sought more autonomy over election cases.
Here’s how federal courts help determine the fate of controversial issues, such as immigration laws, in Texas and beyond.
The appeal includes new testimony from experts who say Roberson’s daughter died of natural causes, and cites the court’s exoneration of a man in another shaken baby syndrome case out of Dallas County.
The Court of Criminal Appeals will rehear a case it threw out last year. Three of the judges became targets of Attorney General Ken Paxton over another ruling and lost reelection.
The Cameron County judge also found the state relied on false testimony during her capital murder trial, according to court documents.
The AG also said he’d make a criminal referral against the lawmaker, who apologized for texting a Court of Criminal Appeals judge about a new trial for the death row inmate.
Leach, one of the driving forces behind the effort to stop Roberson’s execution, later apologized to the judge, who told the lawmaker there were still pending matters before the court.
After the attorney general insisted on the death row inmate’s guilt in a graphic press release, four lawmakers issued a point-by-point rebuttal.
Three of the five judges who allowed Robert Roberson’s execution to proceed will be leaving the court after Paxton-backed primary challenges.
With Roberson’s options dwindling, a House panel used its bully pulpit to prove his case and excoriate the failures of the state’s junk science law.
Travis James Mullis was sentenced to death in 2011 for killing his 3-month-old son in Galveston. He was the fourth person executed in Texas this year.
Lawmakers cite new scientific evidence that they say proves Robert Roberson, who is set for execution on Oct. 17, did not kill his daughter.
Texas’ 2013 law that allows for new trials in cases with flawed scientific evidence was pioneering. But the state’s highest criminal court has rejected most of those challenges.
Lawyers for Robert Roberson say the science used to sentence him to death is questionable and that prior health issues could explain the death of his 2-year-old daughter in 2002.
The court re-sentenced Gallo to life in prison for the murder of his girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter.
Three incumbent judges with nearly a century of criminal law experience fell victim to Paxton’s political revenge tour after they ruled against the attorney general in a 2021 voter fraud case.
Faith leaders and jurors from the original trial launched a public campaign to reconsider recanted testimony in Cantu’s case. Texas courts declined.
The attorney general has tried to supplant eight Republican judges on the court after they rejected his efforts to unilaterally prosecute voter fraud. The judges are now pushing back.
Speer has been on death row for decades after strangling another inmate at a Texas prison. The victim’s sister and faith leaders have both called on the parole board to halt the execution.
The impeached attorney general appeared in a Houston courtroom, where lawyers from both sides agreed to return in October to set an expected trial date on charges that have been pending since 2015.
Overlooked in the churn of one of the country’s busiest courthouses, the forgotten appeals included two death penalty cases, and one from a man who’s already finished his 20-year sentence.
Reed, a Black man on death row for more than 25 years, has gained international support for his claims that he did not kill 19-year-old Stacey Stites, a white woman. Another appeal over DNA testing of evidence is still pending.
Robert Roberson was sentenced to death for killing his 2-year-old daughter. Experts have since backtracked on the science used in part to win his conviction.
Fratta was convicted in the 1994 murder-for-hire of his wife. Lawyers are challenging Texas’ routine of extending the expiration dates of its lethal drugs, a practice begun when many pharmacies began refusing to provide doses for executions.
Areli Escobar was sentenced to death in 2011 for an Austin murder, but even prosecutors now agree his conviction relied heavily on faulty DNA testing by the discredited Travis County crime lab.
The Court of Criminal Appeals scuttled nearly 450 cases, saying migrants arrested for trespassing in Kinney County can’t ask Austin judges to hear their appeals.
Three seats were up for election in the Texas Supreme Court, which handles civil cases, and three in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Democrats haven’t been elected to either court since the late 1990s.
Texans will vote on three seats for the state’s highest criminal court in November. Here’s what the court does, who is running for office and what issues candidates are running on.
The jury sentenced Gonzales to death after a prosecution expert testified that he posed a future danger to society. The expert now says his data was wrong.
Mason said she didn’t know she was ineligible to vote when she cast a provisional ballot in 2016, but she was sentenced to five years in prison. Now, the Court of Criminal Appeals says an appellate court that affirmed her conviction must look again at the evidence of Mason’s intent.
Months after the problems became apparent, migrants are still being kept in prison in violation of state laws under Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security crackdown.
Republicans from Gov. Greg Abbott on down are pressuring the all-GOP Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to reverse a December ruling that gutted the attorney general’s power to go after election cases on his own.
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Rick Rhoades was convicted of killing two brothers 30 years ago, the day after he'd been released from prison on parole. His attorneys argued that racial bias in jury selection denied him a fair trial.
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Clinton Young was convicted in a 2001 Midland County murder in which he insists he was framed. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said he was denied the right to a fair trial and an impartial judge.