> It was against this muddled constitutional backdrop that the Texas Supreme Court significantly changed the “actual innocence” debate this past May in In Re Billy Fredrick Allen. Allen was arrested for two murders in 1983 by Dallas County authorities. He was subsequently convicted and was sentenced to two concurrent 99-year terms. His convictions were upheld on direct appeal. Over the next quarter century Allen filed several writs of habeas corpus in state courts alleging constitutional violations and claims of actual innocence—the latter claim having been recognized as cognizable in post-conviction habeas corpus proceedings in 1996 in Ex parte Elizondo. In 2009 the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) found that Allen’s “newly discovered evidence” demonstrated a sufficient showing of “actual innocence” under Schlup v. Delo to warrant the issuance of a writ of habeas corpus and a release from custody.
Wow, thanks for that. Perhaps progress is possible on this front.
I've never completely understood the tendency towards severity in Texas, other than the long period in which it was simply very violent, but that would depend on a questionable reading of the effects of institutional memory.
( and I am a Texican my own self, but Ron White wasn't kidding... "we have the death penalty, and we USE it" ).