Missouri CAA Lawyer Matt Daher Co-Authors Book

Matt Daher is the Missouri criminal appeals lawyer for Criminal Appeals Advocates (CAA). He handles direct appeals, post-conviction motions, and innocence investigations for inmates convicted in Missouri. Mr. Daher also manages criminal appeals cases in Texas, and the following article announces the new book he co-wrote on Texas post-conviction motions.

---

Last year, in 2024, 26 former Texas inmates were proven innocent after having already been convicted of crimes they did not commit.  According to the National Registry of Exonerations, almost all of these now-free individuals had attorneys who filed Texas 11.07 Habeas Corpus Applications.  The 11.07 Application, while very difficult to win, is the most commonly used method of overturning convictions for innocent Texas inmates.  It is also used to challenge other rights violations, including ineffective attorneys and improper judge rulings.

Justice Lost, Justice Gained discusses five cases where Texas inmates were able to overturn their case or reduce their sentence through a Texas 11.07 Habeas Corpus Application.

The intricacies of the Texas 11.07 are now more accessible to the general public, as Texas appeals attorneys Matthew Daher and Aaron Spolin have released a book on the subject: Justice Lost, Justice Gained: How Five Texas Inmates Won Their 11.07 Appeals. The book discusses five cases where 11.07s were successful and shares the actual court decisions that recognized how these fives inmates' rights had been violated.

The following summary is excerpted from the back of the book:

Stories of Injustice and (Late) Rectification

• An innocent man wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife.

• A stressed babysitter convicted based on flawed science.

• A mentally disabled man over-sentenced for a crime he did not understand.

• A prosecutor sent to jail for his deliberate hiding of evidence.

These and other true stories in this book have one thing in common: the defendant ultimately found justice through a Texas 11.07 Habeas Corpus Application.

The 11.07 is one of the most powerful but least understood provisions of the Texas Code.  Exceptionally difficult to win, 11.07 applications allow Texas inmates to bring out-of-court evidence to show how their rights were violated.  This book discusses these cases and shares the actual court decisions that ruled in the defendants’ favor.  See the words of judges who were forced to acknowledge the truth: these defendants were brutally wronged by the Texas criminal justice system, and overturning their convictions was the only fair outcome.

About the Authors:

Matt Daher is the lead Texas attorney at Criminal Appeals Advocates (CAA), a law firm focusing on direct appeals, 11.07 applications, and federal writs. Aaron Spolin, also of CAA, is a former Assistant District Attorney and is the author of multiple books on criminal law topics, including Witness Misidentification in Criminal Trials and Fighting Federal Writs of Habeas Corpus.

Justice Lost, Justice Gained can now be purchased by the general public on Amazon.com.