Justia Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Opinion Summaries

The appellant was convicted pursuant to an indictment charging him with the offense of possession of cocaine in an amount less than one gram, a state-jail felony, and the jury assessed his punishment at one year's confinement. On appeal, he argued that the trial court erred in failing to submit a jury instruction under Article 38.14 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, which requires the jury to find that the testimony of the accomplice witness was corroborated before it could rely on that testimony for a conviction. Although the appellant did not object in the trial court to the absence of such an instruction, he argued on appeal that his conviction should nevertheless be overturned because, under "Almanza v. Texas," he suffered egregious harm from the defective jury charge that lacked an accomplice witness instruction. The appellant also argued, alternatively, that he should be acquitted because the evidence was legally insufficient to corroborate the testimony of the accomplice witness. In an unpublished opinion, the Eighth Court of Appeals reversed the appellant's conviction. The court of appeals agreed with the appellant that the lack of an accomplice-witness instruction egregiously harmed him. Additionally, the court of appeals sua sponte noted that the trial court had neglected to read the jury charge out loud to the jury as required by Articles 36.14 and 36.16 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Although the appellant neither objected to this second deficiency at trial, nor even raised it as a point of error on appeal, the court of appeals recognized it as jury-charge error that is also subject to "Almanza" analysis and found it also to be egregiously harmful. The court of appeals failed to reach the appellant's legal sufficiency claim, even though if successful, such a claim would have resulted in his acquittal. The Supreme Court granted the State's petition for discretionary review in order to examine the court of appeals's finding of egregious harm with respect to the two jury charge errors. Finding merit to appellant's arguments on appeal, the Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals. View "Casanova v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellee was charged by indictment with multiple counts of intoxication assault stemming from his involvement in a crash that injured the members of a family, one of them severely. The indictment included enhancement paragraphs that incorporated appellee's three convictions in Iowa for the offense of "operating under the influence, unintentionally causing serious injury." Under Iowa law, this offense is an "aggravated misdemeanor." The state appealed the trial court's refusal to let it use the Iowa convictions to enhance the punishment range of the charged offense. The court of appeals dismissed the state's appeal for lack of jurisdiction, and the state petitioned the Supreme Court for review. Upon review, the Court found that the plain language of article 44.01(a)(1) compels the Court to hold that the court of appeals had jurisdiction in this case. Consequently, the Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals and remand this case to that court for consideration of the merits of the state's claim. View "Texas v. Le Richardson" on Justia Law

In November 2009, a jury convicted appellant of the 2006 capital murder of Renee Urbina Hernandez and Arturo Fonseca. Based on the jury's answers to the special issues set forth in Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 37.071, sections 2(b) and 2(e), the trial judge sentenced appellant to death. After reviewing appellant's twelve points of error, the Supreme Court found them to be without merit. Consequently, the Court affirmed the trial court's judgment and sentence of death. View "Hernandez v. Texas" on Justia Law

Sheriff's deputies arrested appellant for possession of a controlled substance. She filed a motion to suppress, alleging that the controlled substance was illegally obtained as the result of a warrantless search of her apartment. The trial judge held a hearing and denied relief, and appellant then plead guilty pursuant to a plea bargain. On appeal, appellant challenged the trial judge's denial of her motion to suppress. The court of appeals affirmed the ruling of the trial court. Appellant raised three issues in her Petition for Discretionary Review: (1) the Fourth Court of Appeals erred in holding that a warrantless search was justified under the emergency doctrine when the emergency doctrine was not a theory urged by the State at the suppression hearing and when there was no evidence presented at the suppression hearing that officers remained in Appellant's home pursuant to the emergency doctrine; (2) are law enforcement officers justified in remaining in a person's residence without a warrant under the guise of conducting a "warrant check" after the homeowner unequivocally tells officers to leave the residence?; (3) when law enforcement officers remain in a person's residence without a warrant under the guise of conducting a warrant check after the homeowner unequivocally tells officers to leave the residence, are they committing the offense of Criminal Trespass which would render any evidence seized after the intrusion inadmissible? Upon review, the Supreme Court reversed the appellate court's decision. The Court concluded that the trial court's factual finding that the police presence in the appellant's apartment was part of a reasonable domestic-violence investigation is accurate with respect to the officers' initial entry, but it did not support a legal conclusion that the officers were still completing their investigation of domestic violence at the time they remained in appellant's apartment while waiting for a return on the warrant check and at the time that the illegal substance was found. At that point, the appellant had told them four times to leave, and the officers, by their own admission, were planning to leave the apartment after the results of the warrant check came back because their domestic-violence investigation had been completed. Having revoked her consent to enter, the officers had no probable cause to arrest her until after the fourth iteration of her revocation of consent, and that, by remaining in her apartment, the officers were not at a vantage point where they had the right to be. The trial court should have granted appellant's motion to suppress, and the court of appeals erred when it affirmed the trial court's denial of that motion. Because of the Court's conclusions on appellant's first and second grounds, the Court did not address her third issue on appeal. View "Miller v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant was arrested for driving while intoxicated (DWI). When the trial court denied his pre-trial motion to suppress, Appellant pled guilty and was convicted of DWI. The Sixth Court of Appeals held that Appellant acted voluntarily when he submitted a breath specimen and thus affirmed the trial court's decision to admit the evidence. Finding no merit to Appellant's arguments on appeal, the Supreme Court affirmed the court of appeals. View "Fienen v. Texas" on Justia Law

The issue before the Supreme Court in this case centered on whether a plea of "true" to failure to pay "fees" as required under conditions of community supervision waived or forfeited a claim if the defendant was unable to make those payments. Appellant Raimond Kevon Gipson pled true to the failure-to-pay allegation without raising any argument or evidence that he was unable to pay and, on appeal, made that argument for the first time. Without addressing whether his argument was preserved, the court of appeals determined that there was no evidence that appellant had willfully refused to make the community-supervision payments and held that the trial court abused its discretion by revoking his community supervision. The State argued, however, that a court of appeals may not reverse on the merits of a claim without first determining that it had been preserved for appeal. The Supreme Court agreed: because the court of appeals found the evidence insufficient to support revocation without addressing the State's procedural argument, the case was remanded back to that court for further proceedings. View "Gipson v. Texas" on Justia Law

The State sought the issuance a writ of mandamus to require a trial judge to submit the entire case--both guilt and punishment--to the jury after the defendant pled guilty to the jury. Cary Faulkner was charged with felony DWI. He reached an agreement with the State to plead guilty in exchange for a sentence of four years in prison, a $2000 fine, a two-year driver's-license suspension, and a deadly-weapon finding. Judge Waldrip said he was not inclined to make a deadly-weapon finding so that he could have "all options available to us as need be." The prosecutor would not agree to remove the deadly-weapon finding from the plea agreement, even in exchange for the higher sentence of five years. Judge Waldrip asked why, and the prosecutor responded that, without the deadly-weapon finding, the defendant "would then be eligible for shock probation, and I have no plans for Mr. Faulkner being on probation." Ultimately, Judge Waldrip rejected the plea agreement and set the case for a jury trial. Before the beginning of trial, Faulkner elected to have the trial judge assess punishment. At trial, after the jury was sworn, Faulkner pled guilty. The prosecutor then asserted that Faulkner's plea rendered the trial a unitary proceeding, and therefore, the jury was to assess punishment. But Judge Waldrip ruled that punishment would be assessed by himself, not the jury. The State thereafter filed an application for emergency stay and a petition for a writ of mandamus with the Third Court of Appeals, which denied relief. The State then filed with the Supreme Court an application for emergency stay of the proceedings, a motion for leave to file a petition for a writ of mandamus, and a petition for a writ of mandamus. Upon review, the Supreme Court disagreed with Judge Waldrip's contention that the law did not clearly provide for the relief the State sought: both statute and caselaw were unequivocal that a plea of guilty causes the trial to become unitary. "Even if Faulkner pled not guilty, and that plea were accompanied by a defense concession at trial that Faulkner was in fact guilty, the jury would at least have something to decide, even if that decision seems like a foregone conclusion." The Court conditionally granted mandamus and directed Judge Waldrip to proceed with trial, submitting all relevant issues, including punishment, to the jury so long as Faulkner's plea of guilty remained in place. View "Texas ex rel. Tharp " on Justia Law

Appellant Becky Elizondo was charged with theft of fifty to five hundred dollars. She filed a motion to suppress a written confession obtained by a loss-prevention officer. After a suppression hearing, the trial court denied Appellant's motion. She appealed, claiming that there was an agency relationship between the loss-prevention officer and law enforcement, and thus her statement was inadmissible under Article 38.22 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure. The court of appeals affirmed the trial court's judgment. The Supreme Court granted Appellant's ground for review to determine whether the court of appeals erred in affirming the trial court's denial of Appellant's motion to suppress the written confession obtained by the loss-prevention officer. The Court agreed with the court of appeals that no agency relationship existed between law enforcement and the loss-prevention officer, and affirmed. View "Elizondo v. Texas" on Justia Law

During the course of a traffic stop, Appellee Octavio Ortiz made incriminating statements. The trial court suppressed the statements, finding that appellee was in custody when the statements were made and that he had not been properly Mirandized. The State appealed, and the Seventh Court of Appeals, in a published opinion, affirmed the trial court's determination that appellee was in custody when he made the incriminating statements. The Supreme Court granted the State's petition for discretionary review to examine the court of appeals' determination that the initial traffic stop had shifted into a custodial detention. Agreeing with the appellate court's decision, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Texas v. Ortiz" on Justia Law

A jury found Mark Crabtree guilty of the second-degree felony offense of failing to comply with sex offender registration requirements. Crabtree claimed that the evidence was legally insufficient to support his conviction because the evidence failed to demonstrate that the Department of Public Safety (DPS) determined his extra-jurisdictional conviction was substantially similar to a Texas offense requiring registration; therefore the State did not prove that he was required to register as a sex offender in Texas. Upon review, the Supreme Court agreed and rendered a judgment of acquittal. View "Crabtree v. Texas" on Justia Law