| On March 27, 2016, 54-year-old Allen Johnson was arrested in Taylor County, Texas on a charge of failing to register as a sex offender.
At the time, the Taylor County District Attorney’s office said he was required to register until 2018 based on a 1988 conviction for attempted sexual assault. On July 27, 2017, Johnson pled guilty in Taylor County Criminal District Court to the failure to register charge. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Johnson was released on parole on June 10, 2021. In preparation for his release, a review of his records showed that due to a paperwork error years earlier, authorities believed that his requirement to register did not expire until 2018. In fact, Johnson’s requirement to register actually had expired in 2008 – nearly 10 years before he was convicted in 2017.
In December 2022, Johnson's attorneys, Jacob Blizzard and Sarah Durham, filed a state law petition for a writ of habeas corpus seeking to vacate Johnson’s conviction. In January 2023, the trial court recommended the writ be granted.
On April 19, 2023, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted the writ and vacated the conviction.
“Due to errors in the Sex Offender Registry paperwork at the time of his plea, all of the parties incorrectly believed that [Johnson] was required to register for approximately ten years after the registration requirement should have expired,” the court said. “The errors in the record were not corrected until April of 2022. Based on the record, the trial court determined that [Johnson] has established by clear and convincing evidence that he is actually innocent.”
On June 5, 2023, the prosecution dismissed the case.
Johnson subsequently was awarded $463,333 in compensation from the state of Texas.
– Maurice Possley
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