Clinton Young Free Pending Retrial After 20 Years on Texas Death Row

Former Texas death-row pris­on­er Clinton Young has been released from cus­tody near­ly twen­ty years after being sen­tenced to death for a dou­ble mur­der he has con­sis­tent­ly said he did not commit. 

Young, pic­tured with Clinton Young Foundation Legal Director Merel Pontier after his release, walked out of the Midland County Detention Center January 21, 2022, after the foun­da­tion post­ed bond to secure his free­dom while pros­e­cu­tors from neigh­bor­ing Dawson County decide whether to retry Young on the charges. The foun­da­tion crowd­fund­ed con­tri­bu­tions to cov­er 15% of the $150,000 cash bail to gain Young’s release.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) grant­ed Young a new tri­al in September 2021 fol­low­ing rev­e­la­tions that his pros­e­cu­tor from the Midland County District Attorney’s office had also secret­ly served as a paid clerk to coun­ty judges who presided over Young’s tri­al and post-conviction appeals. 

In a video post­ed on the foundation’s Facebook page, Young removed his left sneak­er and sock and stepped off the pave­ment onto a lawn, say­ing ​“It’s not a win until my feet touch grass.”

“I was on death row for over 20 years for a crime that I didn’t com­mit,” Young told Midland tele­vi­sion sta­tion KMID in a tele­phone inter­view. ​“I had no phys­i­cal con­tact with my friends or fam­i­ly. I was in soli­tary con­fine­ment for over 20 years … fac­ing death. … Yesterday was the first time I hugged my baby sis­ter in a long time,” Young said.

“Just being able to touch grass and to look at the sun with­out look­ing through prison bars, I mean, man, it’s a bless­ing. It’s over­whelm­ing,” Young told reporter Rob Tooke. “[I]t’s kind of hard to find the right words,” Young said. ​“I am still processing everything.”

Evidence of Innocence and Prosecutorial and Judicial Misconduct

Young was con­vict­ed of kid­nap­ping and dou­ble mur­der and sen­tenced to death in a 2003 tri­al before Midland County Judge John G. Hyde. His con­vic­tion rest­ed on the tes­ti­mo­ny of David Page, an admit­ted par­tic­i­pant in the killings, who pro­vid­ed tes­ti­mo­ny impli­cat­ing Young. The tri­al and state-court appeals took place with­in a 19-year peri­od between 2000 and 2019 in which a mem­ber of Young’s pros­e­cu­tion team, Assistant District Attorney Ralph Petty, served simul­ta­ne­ous­ly as a full-time pros­e­cu­tor and as a part-time law clerk to Midland County’s judges. Neither Petty, the DA’s office, nor any of the coun­ty judges dis­closed the arrange­ment to the defense. 

Petty act­ed in this dual role through­out both Young’s tri­al and his tri­al-court appeals. During this time, he advo­cat­ed against Young’s chal­lenges to his con­vic­tion and sen­tence in the court­room while act­ing behind the scenes as a law clerk advis­ing the court on the res­o­lu­tion of those chal­lenges. Court records show that while Young’s state post-con­vic­tion chal­lenge was pend­ing before Hyde, ​“Petty authored the State’s plead­ings oppos­ing Young’s appli­ca­tion and appeared, in-per­son, as the pros­e­cu­tor at the 2006 evidentiary hearing.”

Four years lat­er, after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had autho­rized Young to pur­sue a sec­ond habeas peti­tion, Petty again served both as pros­e­cu­tor and law clerk in the tri­al court. This time, Young’s case was before Judge Robert Moore, who held evi­den­tiary hear­ings in January and July 2010. Petty rep­re­sent­ed the state in those hear­ings, and in his role as pros­e­cu­tor, Petty sub­mit­ted a ​“sug­gest­ed order” that sought to dis­miss the claims the appeals court had autho­rized Young to pur­sue. Judge Moore, who was pay­ing Petty for his work as a judi­cial clerk, adopt­ed the sug­gest­ed order verbatim.

After the fed­er­al courts denied Young’s fed­er­al habeas cor­pus peti­tion, Petty filed a motion before Judge Moore seek­ing a war­rant for Young’s exe­cu­tion. Judge Moore issued the war­rant and set an exe­cu­tion date of October 26, 2017. Young moved to with­draw the war­rant based upon alle­ga­tions that pros­e­cu­tors had obtained his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence with false or per­jured tes­ti­mo­ny. He argued that gun­shot residue on the gloves of David Page and affi­davits from four pris­on­ers that Page had bragged about com­mit­ting the killing and fram­ing Young would show that Page was the actual killer.

Judge Moore set a hear­ing date on Young’s alle­ga­tions but, with­out noti­fy­ing the defense, Petty then filed motions with Moore to grant use-immu­ni­ty to Page and to appoint Petty to rep­re­sent Page at the hear­ing. Young was able to halt the hear­ing, but not before Midland pros­e­cu­tors had obtained a bench war­rant and moved Page to the coun­ty jail. Documents filed with the court showed that Midland District Attorney Laura Nodolf then secret­ly inter­viewed Page, who admit­ted that he, not Young, had kid­napped one of the vic­tims at gun­point; that he had tes­ti­fied false­ly when he said that Young had sug­gest­ed slit­ting the victim’s throat; and that he tes­ti­fied false­ly when he denied hav­ing bought the gloves, on which the residue was lat­er found, hours before the vic­tim was shot.

While Petty suc­cess­ful­ly argued in the tri­al court against lift­ing the death war­rant, Midland pros­e­cu­tors with­held that exculpatory evidence.

Young came with­in eight days of being exe­cut­ed. However, on October 18, 2017, the TCCA issued an order stay­ing his exe­cu­tion and direct­ing the tri­al court to con­duct an evi­den­tiary hear­ing on his false or per­jured testimony claim. 

Following Petty’s retire­ment, a new pros­e­cu­tor was assigned to the case, and in August 2019, Young’s attor­ney received a phone call from the Midland District Attorney’s office alert­ing the defense for the first time to Petty’s dual role in the case and the judi­cial con­flicts of inter­est. The Midland DA’s office then moved to with­draw from the case, call­ing the court’s arrange­ment with Petty a ​“direct vio­la­tion” of eth­i­cal rules. The TCCA grant­ed the motion and appoint­ed Dawson County District Attorney Philip Mack Furlow to rep­re­sent the state in the case.

On April 26, 2021, Senior Judge Sid Harle issued a rec­om­men­da­tion that the TCCA reverse Young’s con­vic­tion, cit­ing ​“brazen” and ​“shock­ing pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct” that, he said, ​“destroyed any sem­blance of a fair tri­al.” On September 22, 2021, the TCCA grant­ed Young’s peti­tion for a new tri­al. In a unan­i­mous deci­sion, the court wrote: ​“Judicial and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct — in the form of an undis­closed employ­ment rela­tion­ship between the tri­al judge and the pros­e­cu­tor appear­ing before him — taint­ed Applicant’s entire pro­ceed­ing from the out­set …. The evi­dence pre­sent­ed in this case sup­ports only one legal con­clu­sion: that Applicant was deprived of his due process rights to a fair tri­al and an impartial judge.” 

The TCCA returned the case to the tri­al court for the Dawson County District Attorney to deter­mine whether to attempt to retry Young or dis­miss the charges against him. The tri­al court set bail at $150,000, set­ting the stage for Young’s release.

Dawson County pros­e­cu­tors declined to com­ment on the case.

A USA Today inves­ti­ga­tion in February 2021 found that Petty had pros­e­cut­ed at least 355 cas­es while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly per­form­ing legal work for the judges try­ing the cas­es. Seventy-three of the defen­dants in those cas­es were still in prison, with 21 serv­ing sen­tences of 50 years or more. Court doc­u­ments showed that Petty had received at least $132,900 in pay­ments from Midland County as a law clerk to mul­ti­ple dis­trict judges on cas­es he also was involved in pros­e­cut­ing. Facing dis­ci­pli­nary action, Petty sur­ren­dered his law license and was for­mal­ly dis­barred in April 2021.