In the News: Harris County Precinct 4 Vows to Reintroduce Cases Thrown Out by Criminal Court Judges

You would think that having a case thrown out o court would put an end to the case. But Harris County Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman doesn’t appear to agree.

Earlier this week he announced that he was launching a new initiative to refile criminal cases thrown out by Harris County criminal court judges. The judges had thrown them out for lack of probable cause.

That means that many who were accused of crimes may find themselves needing to prepare to defend themselves once again. They’ve already refiled more than 100 cases.

Note that the precinct may only refile cases dismissed “without prejudice.” If the case was dismissed with prejudice they may not refile it. Those cases are over. In addition, they may not refile any case that has passed the statute of abundance.

In the normal course of things even a case dismissed without prejudice would require additional evidence to refile.

What can you do?

Check if your case is a Precinct 4 case.

You can find the Precinct map here. As you can see it covers a great deal of the west side of Houston out past 99. It’s in Harris County but is not within the Houston city limits.

You should also get a notice if your case has been refiled.

Reach out to a qualified criminal defense attorney.

It may not be enough to get your case thrown out yet again, not if this fellow is just going to try to refile it a third time. While eventually this may annoy the DA and judges alike, you don’t want to get caught in the middle.

In some cases it may be better to go right ahead and try the case.

In all cases, your attorney will know, after thoroughly reviewing the facts of your case, what your best move is in light of the available evidence. We may also be able to convince the DA to dismiss your case with prejudice this time, so that it won’t be open to these sorts of political shenanigans in the future.

After all, this is being done at a time when there’s a backlog of cases caused by Covid-19 cases.

Harris county criminal law is always kind of a wild ride, but if you’re in trouble there’s a law firm you can reach out to. Contact Greco Neyland to get a vigorous defense and to protect your rights.

See also:

Harris County Theft Lawyer

Harris County Gun Charges Lawyer

Harris County Possession of a Controlled Substance Lawyer