State of Texas v. Frank Moaning

In March 2018, 75-year-old Frank Moaning was charged with murder after a confrontation near a gas station at Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. and W. Bellfort in southeast Houston turned deadly. The story that ran on the news that week was the police narrative — a few paragraphs, written before anyone had heard Mr. Moaning’s side.

A murder charge against a 75-year-old man is exactly the kind of case where the difference between the first version of events and the whole story decides the rest of someone’s life. Texas law recognizes the right to defend yourself, and it requires the State to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a killing was not justified. Justin dug into every fact the first news cycle never mentioned — what happened before the cameras arrived, who threatened whom, and what a man in his client’s position reasonably believed in that moment.

The murder charge did not stand. Mr. Moaning was found guilty of only a lesser offense — and where the State’s original charge could have meant spending the rest of his life in prison, he was sentenced to probation. No prison. No jail. A man in his seventies went home to his family instead of dying behind bars.

Justin has handled homicide cases from both sides of the courtroom for over two decades — as a Harris County felony chief prosecutor and as defense counsel in some of the county’s most-watched trials. When the charge is murder, the fight is for every single degree of the outcome — and every year of your life. The time to get a fighter involved is immediately.

As covered by the press

• ABC13 — 75-year-old man charged with murder

Every case is different. Past results do not guarantee, warrant, or predict a similar outcome in your case.