I have a Class A Misdemeanor conviction that is currently under appeal to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.

I currently have a court appointed attorney who filed my appeal.  He has filed for early termination of probation and included a request that the conviction be set aside.

I have been a very compliant probationer and my probation officer expressed no concerns and approves of the request.

I am a 45 year old female who has a post secondary education and had never been in any trouble with the law before this time. 

I believe that there are enough Constitutional violations that a writ of habeas corpus on the State or Federal level would have at least some chance of being granted.

I have a friend who has some concerns about me not wanting a set aside at this time, namely that it may be harder to get a set aside conviction if I have gone through all the appeals, including State and Federal Habeas writs.  Is this the case?   What would your recommendation be?  I would hate for my conviction to be set aside if the Third Circuit was going to come back and reverse my conviction.

Also, regarding expunctions, it looks like the statue requires one to win in the Court of Criminal Appeals :

(b) Except as provided by Subsection (c) of this section, a district

court may expunge all records and files relating to the arrest of a

person who has been arrested for commission of a felony or misdemeanor

under the procedure established under Article 55.02 of this code if the

person is:(1) tried for the offense for which the person was

arrested;(2) convicted of the offense;  and(3) acquitted by the court of

criminal appeals.

http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/CR/htm/CR.55.htm#55.01

The way this reads as I understand it I would have to either lose in the Third Circuit Court and the State would have to appeal and I would then have to win in the Court of Criminal Appeals or I would have to lose in the Third Circuit Court and then win in the Court of Criminal Appeals (which I don't tihnk is terribly likely, thus the desire to file a State or better yet Federal Habeas Writ) in order to even be eligible for expunction.  Please tell me I am wrong in this assessment, since it makes no sense at all that if my conviction were to be reversed and rendered by the Third Circuit that I could not get an expunction.

Thank you for offering to do research.  Unfortunately the attorney who is handling my appeal rarely talks to me.  I'm going to sell my house so that I can PAY an attorney to do the writ (well, I would have to anyway because you can't get a court appointed attorney to file a state writ).  My court date is December 5th and I doubt I will talk to him again until the hearing.  Of course it may be academic anyway, because I don't think he knows how to do set asides.  I'm basing that on nothing other than that he copied the language for the set aside from a blog post and got the statute wrong.  Perhaps it is common legal practice to do so. 

People think I am crazy to continue fighting, but what they did to me is WRONG.  We will not have any Constitutional rights if people don't stand up and fight when their rights are violated.  My trial attorney (who I retained – unfortunately I lost my job due to the media coverage and have run through my life savings fighting this, thus qualifying for a court appointed attorney in the first place) actually apologized to me for the behavior of the State.  He is the only one who has seen ALL the evidence and he knows I am not guilty.  I am now totally and permanently disabled, receive SSDI, and I'm not likely to travel to Canada anyway.  Obviously I am not going to lay out my entire appeal strategy on the Internet and go into all the ways my right were violated, but I can assure you it was egregious. 

If you would be wiling do the research and get back to me I would so appreciate it as I realize your time is worth money.  I am planning to use your firm to do my set aside in the case my appeals fail, if that makes a difference.  I do do a lot of my own research and even have  a law library card and access to Lexis, but this is WAY over my head.