Let’s talk about the four biggest mistakes we see people make in the preparation of an 11.07 writ application here in Texas.
Filing an 11.07 writ of habeas corpus can be intimidating, but it’s important to get it right. Jacob Blizzard, Board Certified Criminal Law and Criminal Appeal Attorney knows this firsthand; he and his team do a lot of these types of writ applications and they’re familiar with the biggest mistakes that people make when filing them.
Many times Jacob sees other people and the way that they do them either:
- By themselves (pro se in legal terms)…
- When they’ve hired a lawyer to file the 11.02 writ application…
- Or they’ve gotten somebody to file it on their behalf…(there are lot of people in prison who swear they know how to do the writ application process without any formal training or legal experience, they have a lot of time on their hands…)
Just because an 11.07 application can actually be filed by anyone that has authorization from the person being illegally held in prison, the results can be devastating.
One wrong move and you could be looking at disaster for your or your loved one’s appeal.
Mistake Number One
Not taking all of your grounds and getting them all in the original 11.07 writ of habeas corpus filing.
What we’re talking about here is if you don’t assert the ground in the first read application that you do and you knew about it or you should have known about it. Then that ground is going to be barred from future consideration by the Court of Criminal Appeals or basically any court you have to assert that ground the first time. If you don’t assert that ground right up front then it’s gone.
The only way that you get around that is if there’s a change in the law or you discover new evidence that would support tying that ground in essentially
Mistake Number Two
The second most common mistake is not doing a thorough investigation. You just kind of throw some stuff at the wall and see what sticks.
A thorough investigation into the case is essential to a good writ because these things are about the facts. FACTS. They’re so much more about the facts than the law. You have to review the trial transcript, you have to look at evidence, you have to be persistent in your search.
Mistake Number Three With Your Writ Application
If you write your writ all about the law how the law was wrong or how you were wronged on some interpretation of the law or the law should be changed…that is a very rarely granted ground for you to be able to get relief. That’s cause the writ is about FACTS. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals wants to see facts that would entitle you to relief.
They want to be informed about things that they don’t know about.
They know the law.
They make the law for state of Texas as a good as it pertains to writs and they interpret the Legislature’s statutes. They have cases that they determine what and how law will be decided. So they they understand the law. They want to know how your facts interact with the law as it is today. So make your writ application all about the facts.
Mistake Number Four
The fourth mistake is not taking your shot, doing your filing early enough. That’s because if you don’t take your shot within the one year timeline, if you don’t file that writ application within one year of the time that you’ve been convicted and your conviction has been finalized, then you will be barred from further review by the federal courts.
I talk often about timelines. If you were convicted, you either plead guilty and you’ve had no appeal, then the timeline would start from then or you went to trial and you were convicted. You went through appeal and you went through the whole process of direct appeal and then the case was finalized and it became a final conviction against you.
Once you went through all of those direct appeals then you have one year from that time to file the writ application in order to preserve federal review. You can still have your writ application heard by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals but your federal review will be barred. So there’s just a time bar that the federal government puts in place for anything that’s been over year after your conviction.
These are the four biggest mistakes that I see people making very often with their writ application. Please be very careful. Be very diligent. Put as much as you can into it as early as you so you can write about the facts and do a thorough investigation into your case.
