APPEALS
Defending Your Right to a Fair Trial
If you’ve been convicted of a crime, you have the right to appeal the decision. An appeal allows you to challenge the trial court's errors or legal missteps that may have impacted your case. At The Law Office of Allison Clayton, we are dedicated to ensuring that every client receives the justice they deserve through an exhaustive review of trial court proceedings.
How We Can Help:
We analyze trial records, identify errors, and prepare comprehensive arguments to present to appellate courts. Our goal is to overturn convictions for our clients. Appeals require careful attention to detail and legal expertise, and we bring both to every case.
How does a defendant appeal a criminal conviction?
When a judge or jury reaches the wrong result, the consequences can be life-changing. An appeal gives the defendant a chance to challenge legal errors, contest the sentence, or address issues that affected the fairness of the trial.
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Appeals move quickly. After sentencing, a defendant has only a short window to file the paperwork that preserves the right to appeal. Missing those deadlines can permanently close the door to review.
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If you believe mistakes were made in your case, it’s important to act promptly. We review trial records, identify legal errors, and develop targeted appellate strategies designed to give each client a meaningful chance at relief.
Which courts handle appeals?
In Texas, there are three basic court levels a person facing serious criminal charges can go through.
Trial Courts
The first level is the trial court. A trial can happen in either a county court or a district court. There is one judge presiding over each of these courts. These courts are the only ones with the power to convene juries and hold trials.
Regional Appellate Courts
The second level is the intermediate, or regional, appellate court. Whereas there are over 450 district courts in Texas, there are only 15 appellate courts covering the state. These courts have between 3 and 13 judges. Each case is decided by a panel of 3 judges. These courts do not hold trials. There is never a jury or witnesses involved in a case on appeal. The 3 judges assigned to a case review what happened at the trial court level and base their decision solely upon that record.
The Court of Criminal Appeals
If someone loses at the intermediate appellate court, the next step is the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals — the state’s highest court for criminal cases. (Its counterpart, the Texas Supreme Court, handles civil matters.) Both courts have nine judges and equal authority in their respective areas of law.
Unlike the lower courts, the Court of Criminal Appeals chooses which cases it will hear. It grants review in only a small percentage of the petitions it receives — in recent years, fewer than seven percent. That makes the presentation of the issues, the framing of the legal questions, and the strategy behind the petition critically important.
How are cases decided on appeal?
There is an entirely different set of rules and procedures followed by appellate and trial courts. In addition to the state-wide appellate rules, each appellate court has its own internal operating procedures and requirements that must be followed.
An appellate court will never hear evidence beyond what was presented at trial. Instead, the court hears purely legal arguments based on the trial record. A trial record is made up of (1) everything that was said in the courtroom and (2) every document that was filed in the case with the trial court. The evidence contained in the record is the only evidence the appellate court will consider.
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The legal arguments on appeal are presented to the court by way of a brief, which is simply a written legal argument. In criminal cases, the person appealing the conviction gets to file the first brief. Then the State gets to respond with a brief of its own.
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Most cases on appeal are decided solely upon the briefs. In some cases, however, the appellate court may instruct the attorneys to appear before the court for oral arguments. In oral arguments, each attorney usually has 20 minutes to present his or her position. During that time, the judges will ask the attorneys questions they have about the case.
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The panel of judges will have a private conference during which they discuss the case with each other. After the panel of judges evaluates the arguments on each side, each judge will indicate which side he or she thinks should win. Each panel has three judges, so whichever side can get two of the three judges to agree is the side that wins.
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After the judges privately discuss the case and decide between themselves which side they think should win, one of the judges on the panel will write the court's opinion. An opinion is simply a judicial decision reduced to writing. If one of the judges on the panel does not agree with the other two judges, she may also write a dissent, which is simply an opinion explaining why she thinks the reasoning or conclusions of the other judges on the panel are incorrect.
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The court gives advance notice to the parties so that the parties know when the court will be discussing their case. No one knows the result of that meeting, however, until the court releases its opinion.