The Texas House passed a bill this week aiming to improve access to relief for individuals whose convictions or sentences may have been undermined by evolving scientific understanding.
House Bill (HB) 115 was presented to the lower chamber on Wednesday by bill author Rep. David Cook (R-Mansfield). He explained that the Legislature had previously passed a 2013 law, known as the Junk Science Writ, that “allowed the court to grant post conviction relief for defendants through a writ of habeas corpus if new scientific evidence is discovered that was admissible and that the court found that had the evidence been presented at trial, the person would not have been convicted.”
