Richard Winfrey Sr. is beside himself. He cannot understand why the state’s highest criminal court has taken more than six months and still not decided whether his 24-year-old daughter should be acquitted of murder when the primary evidence used against her — a dog-scent lineup — has been discredited.

“How in the heck can these people keep her in prison?” he asked during a phone interview from the frigid oil fields of North Dakota, where he works 14-hour days, seven days a week, to pay for his daughter’s legal fight. “I can’t stand what they’re doing.”

There is no legal deadline for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to issue an opinion, and the chief deputy clerk for the court said the reason a case remains pending is not a matter of public record.

Mr. Winfrey and his daughter, Megan, and his son, Richard Jr., were charged with murdering Murray Burr, a janitor at Coldspring High School in Coldspring, during a robbery in 2004. Richard Winfrey Sr. and Ms. Winfrey were convicted.