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Texas Court of Criminal Appeals tackles actual innocence

By Karl R. Keys, Esq.

On the heels of  the Houston Chronicle piece on innocence, the Texas CCA today granted a writ today using “actual innocence as a procedural gateway through which to [address] his otherwise barred constitutional claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel.”  Specifically in Ex parte Billy Federick Allen, Nos. AP-75,580/75,581: The Court used this important difference between the two types of actual-innocence claims to justify the requirement of a different burden of proof in the two cases. Thus, the Court considered it ?appropriate to apply an ?extraordinarily high? standard of review? in a Herrera-type claim, in which ?a petitioner has been ?tried before a jury of his peers, with the full panoply of protections that our Constitution affords criminal defendants,?? id...continue to full post

Full post as published by Capital Defense Weekly on February 04, 2009 (boomark / email).