Criminal Appeals

Have you or a loved one already been convicted of a crime? We can still help!

We have experience in all aspects of post-conviction criminal law including Expungements, Certificates of Rehabilitation, Habeas Corpus Petitions, Parole Hearings, and Prisoner's Rights defense.

Filing a Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus

The California Constitution gives citizens the right to file a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in extraordinary and unusual circumstances. The habeas petition allows a detainee to challenge his or her confinement. The most common ways to effectively challenge your conviction is through new evidence.

Appealing a Felony or Misdemeanor

When a person is convicted, it does not necessarily mean the case ends there. If the defendant feels as if there has been a legal error, the defendant may file an appeal. An appeal is a challenge of the record and it is limited in scope.

California Board of Parole Hearing (Lifers Hearing)

An inmate serving a life sentence, or “lifer,” in California may have an opportunity to be released on parole. Before the inmate is released, however, he or she must first appear before the Parole Board at a hearing. Attorney Chris Blaylock has helped prepare inmates for parole and has been three for three (3/3) on getting a parole date.

Expungement in California

A person who has committed a felony or misdemeanor in the past may have the possibility of removing from his or her record. In California, this process is called an expungement. While it does not completely eliminate your criminal record, it does give you certain protections against discrimination on the basis of the conviction.

Certification of Rehabilitation

Like an expungement, a California Certificate of Rehabilitation is a way to put a person’s conviction behind them. Although it will not erase a person’s conviction, it will be a declaration from California that the person is a law abiding citizen. It is difficult to pursue this without an attorney.

Prisoner’s Rights

An inmate has certain constitutional rights like all other citizens who live in a civilized society. This means that there must be some standard of decency at the prison where the inmates are detained. Criminal defense lawyer Attorney Chris Blaylock believes that inmates should be treated with dignity.

California Prison Reform

Governor Brown challenges California prison reform

For decades, California’s prison system has been out of compliance with basic human rights requirements. Over the last 10 years, the system has been operating near 200% of its design capacity. This severe overcrowding has led to a litany of abuses from grossly inadequate healthcare, to the virulent spread of infectious disease, to a stunningly high suicide rate among inmates. Long under Federal receivership, California’s inmate mental health system is an abject failure. Combined with the rampant use of constitutionally questionable variations on solitary confinement, these failures have played a significant role in California’s inmate suicide rate. With an average of 24 suicides per 100,000 prisoners, the State sits well ahead of the national average of 16 suicides per 100,000 prisoners.

Solitary confinement

Amnesty international released a report in September of 2012 describing California’s practice of caging inmates in solitary housing units (SHUs) as a blatant violation of both the 8^th Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment and international laws on the treatment of humanity. Mental health experts warn that SHUs should be an option only of last resort because even a few days under such conditions cause severe trauma. In 2011, California was host to over 500 inmates housed in solitary confinement for over 10 years; some of them only children when first incarcerated others with significant and well known mental health problems.

Slow legal response

In response to these, and many other issues, a number of human rights organizations filed suit on behalf of prisoners seeking federal intervention. In 2011, after a tortuous legal battle spanning many years, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision requiring California to reduce its prison population to 137% of capacity by June 2013. This ruling lead to the current realignment crisis under which the state has been shifting prisoners from state facilities to county jails and borrowing from county funds to cover state prison costs. Political backlash last year stalled this effort and put pressure on Governor Brown to challenge the court order. In March, a Federal judge denied the Governor’s petition to have the prison order terminated; leading Brown to publicly state that he would again take the case all the way to the Supreme Court rather than continue to comply with the 2011 order.

What you can do now

In the meantime, California’s prison population continues to suffer under difficult conditions, sometimes in violation of the Constitution, international law, and a direct Supreme Court order. While the legal wrangling continues at the state and national level, I am working hard to secure remedies for individuals. By filing Petitions for Writ of Habeas Corpus, I can sometimes challenge an inmate’s confinement in state or federal prison.

If you or a loved one is currently incarcerated in California’s broken system, do not wait on a political solution for reform. While I remain optimistic that reform will be implemented, legal rights should not be kept on hold in the meantime. Please, contact my office immediately to determine whether you can seek post-conviction relief. As Justice Kennedy stated in his 2011 opinion, even convicted criminals have basic rights to their humanity. I can help fight for yours.