Now that you’ve gone through the Writ of Habeas Corpus process, what happens next?
You’ve got your conviction and sentence overturned, then what are you left with?
Effectively when you get your sentence or your conviction overturned, you are sent back for a new trial, so unless you were found actually innocent through the RIP process, then you will have a new trial ordered in your case; your case will be sent back to the trial court and you’ll be able to bond out of jail and get an attorney to work with you on preparing for trial.
Hence, you can do all of the normal things that you did in the first round.
This means there’ll be a plea bargain phase, a pre-trial phase, and a trial phase.
New Trial – what happens?
So now those cases come back for new trials.
What happens next?
Oftentimes, the original people involved in the case either don’t care, they’ve moved on, or they’ve forgotten.
In fact, you may have a prosecutor who has retired or even died.
That’s a good resolution in those cases.
Sometimes a case is dismissed because they have no idea where the complainant is or an event in your Writ of Habeas Corpus process has disrupted a big piece of their case.
For example, you may have discovered Brady evidence, exculpatory evidence that would now most likely result in you being found innocent or not guilty in your trial. In those situations, there is a higher chance that the prosecutor’s office would dismiss your case.
On the other hand, conviction is not the only thing people wonder about.
Sometimes, it may be that they feel over sentenced, or maybe they plea bargain case and the attorney didn’t represent them effectively.
They feel like they are going to get hit worse than in the first place if they challenge this.
There are some things that can prevent that from happening.
If you have gone through the sentencing process without a plea bargain, and you’ve been sentenced by a judge or jury, and that for some reason gets overturned through the Writ of Habeas Corpus process or Appeal process, that is when your case comes back down.
If you go through a trial again or open a plea before the judge where you plead guilty and the judge assesses the sentence, then the judge cannot impose a harsher sentence than you received before.
There’s clear case law that considers this as “retaliation.”, meaning that the judge is prohibited from sentencing you more than you had been sentenced to before. Therefore, If you go through a trial and you are electing to be sentenced by a jury, and you’re effectively found guilty in the jury trial, and you ultimately have to be sentenced by a jury, the jury can sentence you more than what you were sentenced before because they will not know about the appeal process and the Writ of Habeas Corpus process that you went through.
So a lot of times you’ll want to work those cases out or you’ll get the judge to sentence less, but a lot of times the cases come back and the prosecutor’s offices in the cases just want these cases to go away.
That’s mainly because they’re not easy cases to deal with after it’s been several years and they have to do it all over again after they’ve dealt with it one whole time before.
Of course, if they go through the trial process again, that could risk losing the trial.
And so many times they want to get rid of it.
Final Thought
The Writ of Habeas Corpus process is something you should pursue.
Don’t be afraid of what consequences may come.
Get a new trial because in almost all cases, your situation is going to be better than it is right now.
You are going to get freed from prison, be able to bond out of jail, and then at a minimum, you can negotiate for a better deal.
You could get your case dismissed, or you could beat your case in a jury trial.
About The Attorney
Jacob Blizzard is board certified in both criminal law and criminal appellate law.
He regularly practices in the areas of state and federal criminal defense, criminal appeals, post conviction writs of habeas corpus.
In Texas, there are more than 100,000 attorneys licensed to practice, but only 7,450 are board certified.
In the entire State of Texas, as of the 2019 certification year, there were only 87 attorneys board certified in both criminal law and criminal appellate law, making Mr. Blizzard one of 0.087% of attorneys in Texas to hold both of those certifications.
