Alvin Melleth

This application will go to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the highest court in the state for criminal cases.

Nine judges, all Republican, all pretty unfriendly to death row claims.

The success rate for these kinds of filings in Texas is pretty daunting, less than 6%.

Gregg is not embracing the virtues of brevity here.

He's delivering a monster, 371 pages with more than 100 exhibits.

You've heard all the strongest stuff, and so you know these pages contain no smoking guns, no confession from another suspect, no direct evidence of police corruption, just lots and lots of small problems with the case, coupled with big claims from people like George Hall and Ramona Dismukes, who both say star witnesses at the trial were lying, but also can't prove it.

This application is their best and probably last chance to convince the court to stay David Wood's execution.

A stay is the best the lawyers can hope for here.

For the court to say, hold up, there's something potentially wrong here.

Let's send the case to a lower court to dig deeper.

It's highly unlikely this court will simply declare David Wood innocent.

But a stay is still big.

It means David Wood gets to live.

And then his team can spend months or even years continuing to make the case for his innocence.

The lawyers don't know when they'll get a decision, could be close to the wire, and could set off a bunch more frantic litigation in the final hours.

In the meantime, we just have to wait.

And Alvin and I finally have time to meet the man this is all about.

Next time on The Last 12 Weeks, David Wood.

The last 12 weeks is written and reported by me, Maurice Shema, and Alvin Melleth.

Alvin produced the series.