The Latest Breaking News from Court of Criminal Appeals

The latest calls to stave off the politically charged execution come after a summer where GOP leaders asked the state courts to kick Democrats out of office and throw Beto O’Rourke in jail.

The measure comes four years after the state’s highest criminal court ruled the agency could not bring election cases without an invitation from local prosecutors.

No, said the Alabama intermediate appellate court last year (though apparently without a published majority opinion), and last Friday the Alabama Supreme Court declined to hear the case, also without a published opinion, in Ex Parte Rodriguez. But Chief Justice Parker, joined by Justices Bolin, Sellers, and Stewart, dissented—here's an…

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals will now reconsider Areli Escobar’s case, which relied on flawed forensics.

Areli Escobar was sentenced to death in 2011 for an Austin murder, but even prosecutors now agree his conviction relied heavily on faulty DNA testing by the discredited Travis County crime lab.

The Court of Criminal Appeals scuttled nearly 450 cases, saying migrants arrested for trespassing in Kinney County can’t ask Austin judges to hear their appeals.

Three seats were up for election in the Texas Supreme Court, which handles civil cases, and three in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Democrats haven’t been elected to either court since the late 1990s.

Beatty’s lawyers argued unsuccessfully that the 2003 Smith County murder didn’t qualify for the death penalty. Neither the Supreme Court nor Texas Gov. Greg Abbott intervened on Wednesday.

The nine-member Texas Supreme Court has the power to make sweeping decisions that interpret the meaning of the state’s constitution, impacting the lives of Texans across the state. Three seats are on the ballot this year.