Juvenile Charged with Aggravated Sexual Assault Goes Free
Clint Broden has been representing a client adjudicated as a juvenile for aggravated sexual assault and sentenced to twenty years imprisonment on a pro bono basis since 2006. This case has been featured on ABC’s 20/20 and has received extensive publicity in the Austin area via the Austin Chronicle and other outlets.
Clint has spent hundred of hours on this case. Before taking this case to the Texas Supreme Court (the case went to the Texas Supreme Court rather than the Texas Court of Appeals because juvenile cases are treated as civil cases in Texas) Clint brought Baker & Botts and former Supreme Court Justice Deborah Hankinson into the case and they all worked pro bono. Based upon countless hours of work by all involved, the Texas Supreme Court agreed to hear what appears to be the first juvenile habeas corpus case it has heard in its history. On May 18, 2012, the Texas Supreme Court granted habeas relief and ordered a new disposition hearing. It found that the testimony presented by the state’s psychologist at the disposition hearing was false and contributed to the lengthy sentence even though the client’s own lawyer shamefully stabbed the client in the back and testified at the habeas hearing that the psychologist’s testimony had no effect on the sentence.
So far this year, Clint Broden has won appeals or post-conviction relief for three separate clients (one adult in federal court, one adult in state court and one juvenile in state court) in the first five months of 2012 who had been sentenced to a combination of over 100 years imprisonment.
The client who is now an adult should be walking out of prison soon.
