A Phone Call from a Southern Gentleman

Ninth Court of Appeals Justice Hollis Horton called today. In our wide-ranging conversation, he was curious about some of the background of the sexually-violent-predator civil-commitment system that he didn't have interaction with in his part of the process. He was surprised by the relative inexperience of lawyers working on both sides of the SVP docket. He said that he had not seen the 48 Hours piece on the best known SVP trial, that of Wesley Miller (I was Miller's trial counsel.). Justice Horton said that he had visited this blog, looking at the post about Judge Seiler's reversals (It's the second one below here.), and he and I agreed that we valued the work of Nancy Flake, Managing Editor of the Montgomery County Courier. His undergraduate degree, he told me, was in economics. He said he had to get off the phone because of the Beaumont courthouse shooting.

The State Loses Two of Three Convictions of Wesley Wayne Miller

"I then did stand my trial, and boldly I did plea/ A flaw was in my indictment found and that soon had me free."- "The Lily of the West" (A traditional Irish song).
Wesley Wayne Miller, confessed and convicted murderer of Retha Stratton, got two of his three convictions reversed and remanded. The other one was held to have been waived. May be a federal court won't think so, but it is unlikely that he'll be able to get SCOTUS to take the case on direct appeal, and he may well be out before he can get his state habeas petition heard by the trial court and the state appellate court before essaying a petition in front of a federal judge-- the only kind of judge likely to give him any relief. If he can win any other part of the case though, his conviction will be overturned