{"id":280940,"date":"2013-10-28T11:04:19","date_gmt":"2013-10-28T16:04:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ktbb.com\/post\/?p=280940"},"modified":"2013-10-29T11:03:22","modified_gmt":"2013-10-29T16:03:22","slug":"upshur-county-inmate-files-suit-claims-violations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=280940","title":{"rendered":"Upshur County Inmate Files Suit, Claims Violations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ktbb.com\/post\/?attachment_id=280941\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-280941\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2013\/10\/brandonmorganucso-150x150.png\" alt=\"brandonmorganucso\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-280941\" \/><\/a>MARSHALL &#8212; A Gilmer man serving a life sentence for murder is suing the Upshur County District Attorney\u2019s Office, claiming he is being deprived of his liberty based on the office\u2019s failure to release evidence used as part of his case, and that his appeal was sabotaged. That&#8217;s according to KETK and the Longview News-Journal.     But District Attorney Billy Byrd said last week that Brandon Dean Morgan waived his right to an appeal when he pleaded guilty to murdering James Lance Evans with an axe after breaking into Evans\u2019 home.  Morgan was originally charged with capital murder but pleaded to the lesser charge of murder, said Byrd, who was not the prosecuting district attorney on the case.   <!--more-->  <\/p>\n<p>Morgan filed the lawsuit in the Eastern District Court in Marshall, according to documents obtained earlier last week.  In the suit, Morgan alleges the District Attorney\u2019s office refused to release biological evidence that he wants to have retested.   Morgan also names his defense attorneys \u2014 Barry Wallace and David Griffith \u2014 as defendants, claiming they provided ineffective counsel because they withheld \u201cstatements and testimony vital to liberty interests,\u201d according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n<p>In February, Morgan filed a writ of habeas corpus and later that month the criminal court of appeals in Austin dismissed it because the motion was defective, Byrd said.  \u201cBased on how the court ruled, they found he knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily entered the plea agreement,\u201d he said. \u201cUltimately, the courts found he was properly admonished and he was competent when he entered the plea.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Morgan\u2019s statement of claim, according to the lawsuit, says the state failed to release evidence he believes could change the outcome of case, including \u201cpretrial transcripts, police offense reports, affidavits, state\u2019s plea offers, witnesses statements, list of evidence and lab reports.\u201d  The alleged action \u201cdeprives me of my liberty interests in utilizing the state procedures to obtain reversal of my conviction and\/or obtain a pardon or reduction of my sentence,\u201d Morgan claims in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MARSHALL &#8212; A Gilmer man serving a life sentence for murder is suing the Upshur County District Attorney\u2019s Office, claiming he is being deprived of his liberty based on the office\u2019s failure to release evidence used as part of his case, and that his appeal was sabotaged. That&#8217;s according to KETK and the Longview News-Journal. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=280940\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Upshur County Inmate Files Suit, Claims Violations<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-280940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-09 01:27:52","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=280940"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":280955,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280940\/revisions\/280955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=280940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=280940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=280940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}