Texas’ 2013 law that allows for new trials in cases with flawed scientific evidence was pioneering. But the state’s highest criminal court has rejected most of those challenges.

Three incumbent judges with nearly a century of criminal law experience fell victim to Paxton’s political revenge tour after they ruled against the attorney general in a 2021 voter fraud case.

The attorney general has tried to supplant eight Republican judges on the court after they rejected his efforts to unilaterally prosecute voter fraud. The judges are now pushing back.

Texas’ highest criminal court once again said the attorney general needs permission from local prosecutors to pursue election cases. Attorney General Ken Paxton had fought that decision.

For example, members of the Railroad Commission don’t deal with railroads. Here’s what the many officials elected statewide do with the power voters give them.

The 8-1 decision came Wednesday from the all-Republican Court of Criminal Appeals.

The Harris County District Attorney’s Office is legally being forced to turn over key reports from their investigation into the deadly Harding Street raid.

The Court of Criminal Appeals ruled Thursday, Jan. 7, 2021 that 60-year-old Tommy Ward remain imprisoned while the state appeals the lower court's ruling. (Oklahoma Department of Corrections via AP)OKLAHOMA CITY – A man who has spent 35 years in prison in a murder case featured in the book and television series “The Innocent Man” must remain incarcerated even after a judge ordered his release, an appeals court ruled Thursday. The Court of Criminal Appeals ordered Tommy Ward, 60, to remain imprisoned while the state appeals the lower court’s ruling that he be released. Fontenot, Ward's co-defendant, was ordered released by a federal judge in 2019, and the state is also appealing that order. After the details of both men’s confessions were proven untrue — Haraway’s body was discovered years later in a different location and had been shot to death not stabbed as the pair had said — a state appeals court ordered new trials.

Jesse McClure, a trial judge on a criminal court in Houston, will join the state’s highest court for criminal matters in the new year. Greg Abbott appointed McClure, a Republican, to the Court of Criminal Appeals, where he will fill a seat being vacated by Judge Michael Keasler. McClure said he’s looking forward to joining the appellate court, where he hopes his experience on the trial bench will serve him well. Best known for its role in death penalty cases, the court is Texas’ last word on criminal matters. A Texas law that requires judges to retire within a few years of turning 75 forced Keasler to step down partway through his six-year term.