{"id":347001,"date":"2026-06-23T13:10:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T13:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/347001\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T13:10:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T13:10:07","slug":"scotus-orders-texas-court-to-reconsider-mans-murder-conviction-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/347001\/","title":{"rendered":"SCOTUS orders Texas court to reconsider man\u2019s murder conviction"},"content":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered<\/a> Texas\u2019 highest criminal court to reconsider its denial of a new trial in a decades-old Cooke County capital murder conviction, after the current district attorney said he could not support the verdict.<\/p>\n

In 1997, Michael Newberry was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of murdering 62-year-old Granville Hanks while attempting to commit a robbery. Newberry then sought to challenge the conviction several times, including alleging in his third attempt in 2024 that the then-prosecutor had withheld information that could have swayed the jury\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

A visiting Texas judge then recommended last year that Newberry receive a new trial. But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals \u2014 the state\u2019s highest criminal court \u2014 rejected<\/a> that finding in September based on its \u201cindependent review of the entire record,\u201d without offering additional details. Judge David Newell<\/a> was the sole dissent on the nine-person panel.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court took the rare step<\/a> of granting Newberry\u2019s petition and vacated the appeals court\u2019s judgment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a significant step for the Supreme Court to take, so we would hope that the Court of Criminal Appeals would take that into consideration,\u201d said Mark Lassiter, Newberry\u2019s attorney. \u201cMr. Newberry deserves a new trial because he was denied due process.\u201d<\/p>\n

The high court\u2019s ruling also hinged on an April briefing<\/a> by Cooke County District Attorney John Warren, who wrote his office concluded following a \u201cthorough investigation\u201d that the original prosecutor had intentionally withheld evidence favorable to Newberry.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs this Court has observed, it is always a \u2018remarkable\u2019 step when the State of Texas \u2014 or any sovereign \u2014 seeks to vacate a judgment in a capital murder case,\u201d Warren added. \u201cBut, after a full investigation of the evidence and an exhaustive review of Petitioner\u2019s trial, the State no longer had confidence in the verdict.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the Monday ruling, Warren declined to comment on pending matters. Though the district attorney had previously said he would dismiss the case if the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals had ordered a new trial, according to WFAA<\/a>.<\/p>\n

State District Judge Janelle Haverkamp, who originally prosecuted Newberry, didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Texas Tribune.<\/p>\n

Newberry, who is now 46, currently remains behind bars at the Beto Unit in East Texas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered Texas\u2019 highest criminal court to reconsider its denial of a new trial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-347001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}