27 September 2021 :
Appeals Court Vacates Conviction of 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 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. Young, now 38, White, was convicted and sentenced to death by a Midland County jury in 2003 on charges that he had murdered two men for use of their vehicles during a 48-hour crime spree. He has long said he was framed for the murders. Assistant District Attorney Ralph Petty was one of the prosecutors in Young’s case, while at the same time serving as a paid law clerk to state District Court Judge John Hyde. In that dual role, Petty conducted research and made legal recommendations to the court on the same motions the prosecution had filed or were opposing in the case. Neither Petty, nor Hyde, nor the Midland County District Attorney’s office disclosed this conflict to the defense. Petty continued in his dual role when the case advanced to the appeals stage, advocating against Young’s challenges to his conviction and sentence in the courtroom while acting behind the scenes as a law clerk advising the court on the resolution of those challenges. Court documents later showed that, from 2002 until his retirement from the district attorney’s office in 2019, Petty received at least $132,900 in payments from Midland County as a law clerk to multiple district judges on cases he also was involved in prosecuting. The TCCA’s order removed Young from death row and returned his case to the trial court for a decision on whether to reprosecute him.
