Meet our client, an 18-year-old African refugee who found himself facing a daunting sentence for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. However something didn’t sit right with us. After digging deeper, we discovered his case was far more complex than it seemed.
As attorneys Jacob Blizzard and Morgan Walker dug into the details of his case, we uncovered that our client had endured unspeakable horrors as a child during a genocide event in Africa. The trauma led to trust issues and even separation from his own family. And if that wasn’t enough, he tragically witnessed his best friend’s murder at just 16 years old.
What was even more shocking was the fact that his trial counsel failed to present any of this crucial evidence during his original sentencing hearing, to us it was a clear case of ineffective assistance of counsel.
Determined to right this wrongful judgment, we fought tirelessly through the post-conviction 11.07 writ of habeas corpus process. And our efforts paid off when the Court of Criminal Appeals recognized the injustice and ordered him to be resentenced.
The case was sent back to the trial court, where we finally had the chance to present the mitigating evidence that his previous counsel had failed to introduce. After a careful reassessment, the trial court took this new information into account and reduced our client’s sentence to 9 years.
Now here’s more good news: our client had already spent 4 years behind bars. Thanks to the reduced sentence, he would now be eligible for parole in just 6 months instead of the previous 2.5 years.
This is a story of justice prevailing, of fighting for those who have endured unspeakable trauma. Our team, Jacob, and Morgan, are proud to have helped this resilient African refugee find hope in the face of adversity after having to deal with ineffective counsel.
Blizzard and Zimmerman Attorneys work tirelessly to achieve the greatest possible results for each of our clients and their families. This is one of our successful results with the Texas 11.07 writ of habeas corpus, but keep in mind that every case and every client is unique and the results depend on the individual facts and circumstances of each case. Clients may or may not obtain the same or similar results in each case.
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