Archive for the ‘billyfrederickallen’ Category

​In the spirit of this week's cover on the exoneree compensation scheme and the attorneys who've profited handsomely from it, we submit the case of Billy Frederick Allen -- a man incarcerated for nearly 26 years for two apparently drug-related University Park murders. In February 2009, the Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin granted Allen a writ of habeas corpus based on "ineffective assistance of counsel" at trial. There was ample evidence, which his trial attorney didn't pursue, that another man named Billy Wayne Allen was guilty of the murders, the appeals court held. When Allen filed for compensation in March 2010 under the Timothy Cole Act -- a law passed in 2009 that awards innocent men $160,000, split between a lump sum and a yearly annuity, for each year of wrongful imprisonment -- the Comptroller shot his application down, saying the relief granted by the appeals court didn't come in the form of a pardon or court order that explicitly indicated "actual innocence." Allen and his attorneys, Kris Moore and Lubbock personal injury attorney Kevin Glasheen, obviously disagreed with the state's interpretation.