Your trial lawyer picked the jury, cross-examined the witnesses, and argued to the court. You have been convicted and sentenced. Now you need a different set of skills.
An appellate court reads a paper record—thousands of pages, sometimes tens of thousands—and decides whether the law was correctly applied. That requires a lawyer who reads records the way your trial lawyer reads jurors: carefully, patiently, and with an eye for what everyone else missed.
That is what we do.
Board Certified in Criminal Law and Criminal Appellate Law
Mark Bennett is Board Certified in both Criminal Law and Criminal Appellate Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. Very few Texas lawyers hold even one of those certifications. Almost none hold both.
Board certification requires years of practice, peer review, examination, and continuing specialization. It means the Texas Board of Legal Specialization has independently verified that this lawyer knows the field.
Geography does not limit appellate representation
Trial lawyers go to a courthouse. Appellate lawyers go to a record. Your case might be in El Paso, Texarkana, Corpus Christi, or Amarillo. The record is the record. The law is the law.
We regularly practice before intermediate courts of appeals across Texas, and the Court of Criminal Appeals.
Direct appeals
A direct appeal challenges the conviction or sentence based on errors in the trial court record. The trial lawyer preserves error; the appellate lawyer finds it and frames the argument. Sometimes error is obvious. More often it is buried in a ruling that seemed right at the time, or hidden in an instruction that nobody objected to, or embedded in the structure of the indictment itself.
We identify issues that other lawyers do not see. In seven recent cases before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, we won on seven different legal issues: range, not repetition.
Habeas corpus
When the direct appeal is over, or when the error could not have been raised on direct appeal, habeas corpus is the remedy. Habeas claims include ineffective assistance of counsel, newly discovered evidence, actual innocence, false testimony, and Brady violations.
Petitions for discretionary review
When a court of appeals gets it wrong, the Court of Criminal Appeals can grant discretionary review. The petition is the hardest document in Texas appellate practice—4,500 words to convince the highest criminal court in the state that your case is worth its time. We have a track record of getting the Court’s attention with interesting, important issues. Recently we have been arguing in the court more than any other defense team in Texas.
What makes appellate work different
Trial lawyers persuade twelve people in a room. Appellate lawyers persuade three or nine judges through the written word. Appellate work demands a distinct set of skills: the patience to read a ten-thousand-page record, the precision to frame a legal argument on paper, the judgment to know which issues will move a court, the imagination to find issues that everyone else misses.
What makes us different
We bring those skills, but we are also trial lawyers. We understand the record because we understand trials: we know what should have happened, because we have done it.
Writing an appeal is easy; lots of lawyers are doing it and losing. Writing a winning appeal requires finding the issues that other lawyers miss.
If you have been convicted
Deadlines in Texas criminal appeals are short and unforgiving. A notice of appeal must be filed within 30 days of sentencing. A motion for new trial—which can extend that deadline—must be filed within 30 days as well. If your trial lawyer has not already filed these, time may already be running.
If you or someone you care about has been convicted, email us at info@bennettandbennett.com and tell us about the case.