Entries tagged with “Clinton Young”
Issues
Aug 19, 2022
Second Texas County Indicts Clinton Young in 2001 Murder After Court Throws Out Related Conviction and Death Sentence for Prosecutorial Misconduct
Texas prosecutors have indicted former death-row prisoner Clinton Young for a 21-year-old murder in one county after his conviction and death sentence for another murder allegedly committed as part of the same criminal episode in another county was overturned because a lead prosecutor in that case also secretly acted as a paid law clerk to judges who presided over Young’s trial and state post-conviction appeals. On August 12, 2022, a special grand jury convened in Harrison County by the Texas…
Issues
Jan 25, 2022
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…
Issues
Sep 23, 2021
Texas Appeals Court Vacates Conviction of Death-Row Prisoner Clinton Young, Whose Prosecutor was Secretly on the Payroll of the Judge Who Tried Him
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has vacated the conviction of death-row prisoner Clinton Young, whose prosecutor was also on the payroll of the judge who presided over the trial and decided his trial court appeals. In an unsigned opinion and order with no dissents, the TCCA on September 22, 2021 granted Young’s petition for a new trial. “Judicial and prosecutorial misconduct — in the form of an undisclosed employment relationship between the trial judge and the prosecutor appearing…
Issues
May 04, 2021
Trial Court Recommends New Trial for Death-Row Prisoner Whose Prosecutor Secretly Also Served as the Court’s Law Clerk
Finding “brazen misconduct” by a prosecutor who withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense and then secretly served as the trial judge’s law clerk in the case, a Midland County, Texas judge has recommended that death-row prisoner Clinton Young (pictured) be granted a new trial. In a 30-page factfinding order issued on April 26, 2021, Senior Judge Sid Harle excoriated former assistant district attorney Ralph Petty and the Midland County District Attorney’s office for “shocking prosecutorial…
Issues
Apr 26, 2021
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of April 19, 2021
NEWS (4/21 – 4/23/21) — Texas: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has ruled against Texas death-row prisoners in three separate capital appeals. On April 23, a split panel of the court upheld a conviction and death sentence imposed by an all-White jury on Andre Thomas — a Black man — for killing his wife, who was White, and two children. Although three of the jurors who were empaneled expressed strong opposition to interracial marriage, Thomas’ defense counsel did not object to seating…
Issues
Sep 09, 2020
Texas Death-Row Prisoner Seeks New Trial Citing Hidden Evidence that Prosecutor was Paid to Work for Trial Judge in Same Case
Texas death-row prisoner Clinton Young (pictured), who came within days of execution in October 2017 while prosecutors hid evidence of his innocence, has filed a claim for a new trial based upon previously undisclosed evidence that an assistant district attorney who prosecuted him was simultaneously employed by the trial judge to provide legal advice in his case. In an Application for Writ of Habeas Corpus Seeking Relief from a Judgment of Death, filed August 13, 2020 in Midland County…