Justia Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Opinion Summaries

Defendant pled guilty to the offense of murder without an agreement for punishment. On direct appeal, the court of appeals affirmed the judgment (Moussazadeh I). Thereafter, defendant filed an application for habeas relief and the court denied relief because defendant "failed to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that his plea was induced by a misunderstanding of the applicable parole law which formed an essential element of the plea agreement." (Moussazadeh II). Defendant filed a subsequent application for writ of habeas corpus (Moussazadeh III) that asserted that trial counsel's mistaken advice regarding parole eligibility rendered his plea involuntary. The court concluded that Padilla v. Kentucky was not applicable to the facts before the court and its decisions in Ex part Evans and Moussazadeh II were incorrect. The court disavowed its prior decisions in those cases to the extent that they (1) required parole-eligibility misinformation to form an essential part of the plea agreement in order to make a showing of an involuntary plea that resulted from ineffective assistance of counsel, based upon such misinformation and (2) failed to appropriately recognize the distinction between parole eligibility and parole attainment. Accordingly, upon reconsideration, the court granted relief. Moussazadeh III was dismissed. View "Ex Part Moussazadeh" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of murder and attempted murder and filed subsequent applications for writ of habeas corpus. The habeas court concluded that defendant was entitled to actual innocence relief. The court concluded that the State failed to disclose two police reports, identifying other potential suspects, which were material to defendant's case. Because the two undisclosed reports contained favorable evidence material to defendant's case and the State failed to disclose such evidence, the State violated defendant's constitutional right as expressed in Brady v. Maryland. When the court balanced the newly available evidence (including Brady evidence) with other exculpatory evidence and the evidence of guilt presented at trial, the court was satisfied that defendant had shown by clear and convincing evidence that no rational jury would convict him in light of the new evidence. The court reviewed the record and agreed that defendant had established that he was actually innocent and granted habeas relief View "Ex Parte Miles" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of possession with intent to deliver methamphetamine in an amount between four and 200 grams. At issue was whether the trial court erred in re-opening the hearing on the motion to suppress shortly after trial commenced to hear additional evidence outside the jury's presence in support of its pretrial denial of defendant's motion. Defendant contended that this procedure violated Rachal v. State. The court concluded that the court of appeals did not err in holding that the trial court's discretion to reopen the evidentiary hearing on defendant's motion to suppress and to entertain Judge Jacobs's testimony. Nor did the court of appeals err in going beyond the face of the warrant and relying on Judge Jacobs's testimony at the reopened motion-to-suppress hearing as sufficient to establish probable cause to issue defendant's arrest warrant, at least for the offense of failure to appear. Because defendant was arrested pursuant to a valid arrest warrant, the trial court did not err in denying defendant's motion to suppress the evidentiary fruit of that arrest. Accordingly, the judgment of the court of appeals affirming the trial court's judgment was affirmed. View "Black v. State" on Justia Law

Defendant challenged the court of appeal's holding that the trial court properly admitted appellant's un-Mirandized custodial statements made in response to "questioning attendant to an administrative 'booking' procedure." Defendant contended that the court of appeals erred by applying an abuse-of-discretion standard in reviewing the trial court's ruling that the questioning did not offend Texas Code of Criminal Procedure arts. 38.22, 3(a)(2) and 38.23(a); and by affirming the trial court's admission of the statements under the "booking question exception" to Miranda because "the officer's questions -- unlike routine booking questions -- were reasonably likely to elicit incriminating responses." The court concluded that the appellate court must generally review de novo whether a question came within the booking-question exception to Miranda, and that the court of appeals erred by affirming the trial court's admission of defendant's statements under that exception. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Alford v. State" on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with and convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon. At issue was whether defendant's conviction was now void because the predicate felony conviction used to prove his felony status was set aside and the charge dismissed. The court held that to obtain a valid conviction for unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon, the State must prove a defendant's felony status at the time of the possession of the firearm. Therefore, if defendant had the status of a felon at the time he possessed the firearm, a conviction for unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon was not void if the predicate felony conviction was subsequently set aside. Accordingly, defendant was not entitled to habeas corpus relief. View "Ex Parte Jimenez" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of murder and pled true to one enhancement count. At issue was whether the court of appeals erred in holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding that MySpace profiles were properly authenticated. Because there was sufficient circumstantial evidence to support a finding that the exhibits were what they purported to be - MySpace pages the contents of which defendant was responsible for - the court affirmed the trial judge and the court of appeals which had both concluded the same. View "Tiendra, Jr. v. State" on Justia Law

Defendant was indicted with charges related to the sexual assault of his daughters and subsequently pled guilty to two counts of injury to a child. At issue was whether Texas Penal Code Section 3.03(b)(2)(B) authorized a trial judge to order consecutive sentences when a defendant was originally charged with multiple sexual offenses but pleads guilty, pursuant to a plea bargain, to multiple nonsexual offenses. Because the court found that the statutory language was ambiguous, the court turned to its legislative history. This history showed that the legislature enacted this provision to ensure that defendants who, pursuant to a plea bargain, were placed on deferred adjudication for certain specified sex offenses were subject to the same requirements, disabilities, and punishments that had previously been applied only to those formally "convicted" of a sex offense. Therefore, the court affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals, although for different reasons than that relied upon by the lower court. View "Nguyen v. State" on Justia Law