Sunday, November 26, 2006

Gilbert Amezquita gets early Christmas present from CCA

Lots of great stuff coming out of the blog at the StandDown Texas Project, but especially Steve Hall's terrific coverage of the Gilbert Amezquita case, a man sentenced to 15 years in prison based on apparently faulty eyewitness testimony.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals voted 5-4 on Wednesday to order either a new trial or Mr. Amezquita's release. This is another black eye for Harris County DA Chuck Rosenthal, who says his team will meet next week to discuss what to do. In an unusual move, the CCA ruled against Amezquita's original appeal, but ordered his retrial two weeks later based on its own motion. Who knows what back room machinations at the court were behind that unlikely turnaround?

From Hall: "First, here is the Court's opinion, written by Judge Johnson. She was joined by Judges Price, Womack, Holcomb, and Cochran (who also wrote a concurring opinion.) Judge Hervey's dissent was joined by Presiding Judge Keller and Judges Meyers and Keasler."

Hall's blog was cited directly as a source in Steve McVicker's Houston Chronicle coverage. Good job! Stand Down has been doling out great material lately, doing an especially good job with death penalty and innocence cases coming before the Texas appellate courts.

UPDATE: More from Wretched of the Earth's weekly CCA Update.

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