Justia Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Opinion Summaries

Appellant Stephanie Bekendam was convicted of driving while intoxicated and sentenced to 20 years in prison and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine. She appealed, arguing the trial court erred in admitting the expert testimony of the Department of Public Safety (“DPS”) forensic scientist who tested the blood sample and issued the toxicology report. The court of appeals held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the testimony. On appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeals, appellant argued that the court of appeals incorrectly applied the law for admissibility of expert testimony, misconstrued Rule of Evidence 702, and decided an important question of law that had not been settled. The State filed a cross-petition, claiming that the court of appeals failed to address its argument that Appellant’s error was not preserved for review. The Court of Criminal Appeal found no reversible error, overruled the State's ground and affirmed the court of appeals' decision. View "Bekendam v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant, owner of a condominium unit, carried a handgun in the common area of the condominium complex. The issue before the Court of Criminal Appeal in this matter centered on whether appellant violated the “unlawful carrying weapons” (UCW) statute. Generally, the statute prohibits carrying of a handgun except on "the person's own premises." The issue specifically in this case was whether the common area to the condominium complex was part of appellants' "own premises." The Court of Criminal Appeals held that appellant did not violate the UCW statute, and affirmed the court of appeals. View "Chiarini v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Jose Angel Bedolla was convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and leaving the scene of an accident involving injury. The jury sentenced him to three years’ imprisonment and a $10,000 fine for the aggravated assault and a five year probated sentence and $5,000 fine for leaving the scene. Appellant appealed the trial court’s failure to include a self-defense instruction in the jury charge. The court of appeals held that the issue was not preserved for review. The issue this case presented for the Court of Criminal Appeals was whether the appellate court erred in holding that Appellant failed to preserve his complaint regarding the trial court’s refusal to submit a self-defense with deadly-force instruction because uncharged contemporaneous conduct could have given rise to a self-defense instruction. The Court of Criminal Appeals agreed with appellant's contention and reversed the court of appeals. The case was remanded for consideration of the merits of Appellant’s arguments on appeal. View "Bedolla v. Texas" on Justia Law

After pleading guilty to engaging in organized criminal activity on the advice of his retained trial counsel, appellant filed a motion for new trial alleging a conflict of interest on counsel’s part. At the trial court’s hearing on the motion, trial counsel, accused of having misappropriated certain funds entrusted to him by his client, invoked his Fifth Amendment right to refuse “to be a witness against himself.” In response, appellant argued to the trial court that “[a]n inference can be taken from that” that trial counsel had misappropriated the funds. The trial court declined to adopt that inference and denied the motion. The court of appeals, noting in its opinion that the entirety of the evidence offered by the appellant in support of his motion for new trial was “uncontroverted due to [trial counsel]’s invocation of his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself,” held that the trial court had abused its discretion in denying the motion. It reversed the trial court’s judgment (effectively vacating the appellant’s conviction) and remanded the matter back to that court for a new trial. The State petitioned the Court of Criminal Appeals for discretionary review of the court of appeals’ opinion. The Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that trial court did not abuse its discretion “in denying appellant’s new-trial motion on the ground that his trial counsel had a conflict of interest,” and the court of appeals erred to conclude otherwise. The judgment of the court of appeals was therefore reversed. Because the court of appeals sustained the appellant’s first and second issues on appeal, it did not reach the appellant’s “third and fourth issues, in which he argue[d] that the trial court erred in denying his new-trial motion on the ground that his trial counsel failed to adequately inform him of the immigration consequences of his guilty plea.” Accordingly, the case was remanded to the court of appeals for consideration of remaining issues “necessary to the final disposition” of the appellant’s appeal of conviction. View "Odelugo v. Texas" on Justia Law

A jury convicted appellant of aggravated robbery, and the trial court sentenced him to fifty years' incarceration. Because he was indigent, the trial court appointed a lawyer to represent him on appeal. The appellant's appointed appellate counsel was unable to find any meritorious points of error to raise and filed a motion to withdraw with an "Anders" brief. Counsel wrote a letter to the appellant to inform him, inter alia, of his right to file a pro se response to the Anders brief. Appellant instead filed a pro se motion in the court of appeals requesting access to the appellate record. When the appellant neither filed a response to the Anders brief nor sought an extension of time to do so, the Sixth Court of Appeals issued an unpublished memorandum opinion that determined the appeal to be "wholly frivolous." It granted appointed counsel's motion to withdraw from the appeal and affirmed the appellant's conviction, making no mention of any motion for access to the appellate record. Appellant then filed a motion for rehearing in which he once again complained that he had been deprived of access to the appellate record in order to prepare a response; the court of appeals denied this motion. Appellant then filed a petition for discretionary review to the Court of Criminal Appeals. The Court granted appellant's petition and ordered the trial court to appoint counsel for the appellant to brief the issue. In their respective briefs, both the State and appellant agreed that appellant should have been allowed access to the appellate record in order to prepare his response to appointed counsel's Anders brief. By this opinion, the Court of Criminal Appeals addressed the issue of who should bear the ultimate responsibility for assuring that an indigent appellant is allowed access to the appellate record in order to implement this right. The Court held that appointed counsel has a duty, once he has filed a motion to withdraw from representation with accompanying Anders brief, to assist the appellant in filing a motion in the court of appeals for access to the appellate record if that is indeed what the appellant wants. Once such a motion is filed, the court of appeals has the ultimate responsibility to make sure that, one way or another, the appellant is granted access to the appellate record so that he may file his response (if, after reviewing the record, he does decide to file one) before it rules on the adequacy of the Anders brief and appointed counsel's motion to withdraw. View "Kelly v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Richard Rabb was convicted of tampering with physical evidence under Section 37.09(a)(1) of the Texas Penal Code and sentenced to six years of confinement. The Seventh Court of Appeals reversed the trial court's judgment of conviction and rendered a judgment of acquittal. The State filed a petition for discretionary review asking that the Court of Criminal Appeals consider: (1) whether the court of appeals erred in failing to find overlap in the terms "conceals" and "destroys;" (2) whether the court of appeals erred in not permitting the fact finder to infer the evidence was destroyed; and (3) whether the court of appeals was required to reform the judgment to a conviction on a lesser-included offense rather than acquit. After review, the Court of Criminal Appeals held that while there was some overlap between the terms "conceals" and "destroys" for purposes of Section 37.09(a), no rational trier of fact could have found that Appellant destroyed the evidence in this case. However, because the court of appeals did not have the benefit of the Court's recent opinion in "Thornton v. Texas," (425 S.W.3d 289 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014)), the case was remanded for the court of appeals to consider whether reformation of the judgment was required. View "Rabb v. Texas" on Justia Law

In this case, the issue this case presented to the Court of Criminal Appeals was whether the statute defining the offense of continuous sexual abuse of a young child permitted a defendant be convicted both of that offense and of a criminal attempt to commit a predicate offense under that statute. The complainant was appellant's ten-year-old stepdaughter. She testified at appellant's trial that from approximately March 2009 to January 2010, he committed multiple, repeated sexual acts against her, including genital penetration of her anus and mouth, digital and oral penetration of her genitals, and touching of her breasts. She also testified that during the same time period, appellant tried to penetrate her genitals with a vibrator and with his genitals. These facts resulted in a jury convicting appellant of four offenses, only two of which were pertinent to this appeal: the conviction for continuous sexual abuse that was alleged to have occurred on or about June 1, 2009, through January 29, 2010, and the conviction for attempted aggravated sexual assault of a child that was alleged to have occurred on or about January 29, 2010. The court of appeals answered that question in the negative by examining the statute's language and determining that the Legislature could not have intended to permit both convictions because that outcome would violate a defendant's constitutional rights against double jeopardy, and vacated the conviction for attempted aggravated sexual assault. The Court of Criminal Appeals agreed with the court of appeals' judgment vacating appellant's conviction for criminal attempt and with its ultimate assessment that permitting both convictions would violate his constitutional rights against double jeopardy. View "Price v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Lionel Gonzales was indicted on March 17, 2004 for injury to a child and indecency with a child. An arrest warrant was issued following the indictment. The alleged incident from which the charges stemmed was alleged to have occurred on November 27, 2002. Appellant was not arrested on those charges until 2010, approximately six years after he was indicted and the arrest warrant was issued. After his arrest, Appellant filed a pretrial motion to dismiss the indictment for lack of a speedy trial, which the trial court denied. Appellant then pled no contest to the injury-to-a-child offense and was placed on deferred-adjudication community supervision for five years and fined $1,500. The court of appeals held that Appellant's right to a speedy trial was violated because the factors laid out by the United States Supreme Court to assess speedy-trial claims favored Appellant. It also held that the State failed to persuasively rebut the presumption of prejudice or prove that Appellant acquiesced to the "extraordinary" delay in this case. Finding no reversible error in the appellate court's judgment, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed. View "Gonzales v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Jerry Paul Lundgren was arrested for driving while intoxicated. He pled guilty pursuant to a plea-bargain agreement, waived his right to appeal, and was placed on community supervision. About a week later, Appellant was arrested again. After his second arrest, Appellant filed a motion for new trial and a notice of appeal in his first case. Later, the State filed a motion to revoke Appellant's community supervision, and the trial court did so. Appellant argued that his filing of a timely notice of appeal and motion for new trial retroactively stayed the commencement of his community supervision; therefore, the court of appeals erred when it upheld the trial court's ruling. Because the Court of Criminal Appeals concluded under these facts that Appellant's filing of a timely and effective motion for new trial retroactively stayed the commencement of his community supervision until it was overruled by operation of law, the Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals and remanded this case for further proceedings. View "Lundgren v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Bobby Canida was convicted by a jury of manufacturing methamphetamine in an amount of more than one gram but less than four grams. He was sentenced by the court to eighty years' imprisonment after pleading true to the two prior convictions in the State's enhancement paragraph. Appellant appealed, arguing that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction. The court of appeals agreed, finding the evidence legally insufficient to demonstrate that he manufactured more than one gram of methamphetamine and entered a judgment of acquittal. The Court of Criminal Appeals granted the State's petition for discretionary review to determine whether the court of appeals should have reformed the conviction to the lesser-included offense of attempted manufacturing rather than rendering a verdict of acquittal. The State filed a petition for discretionary review, arguing that the court of appeals should have reformed the judgment to a conviction on a lesser-included offense rather than entering an acquittal. The State based its argument on the Court of Criminal Appeals' decision in "Bowen v. Texas," (374 S.W.3d 427 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012)), which held that a reformation of a conviction rather than an acquittal was the proper remedy. The State contended the evidence in this case was sufficient to prove the lesser-included offense of attempted manufacturing of methamphetamine, he conviction to attempt, and that the case should have then been remanded to the trial court for a new hearing on punishment. On April 2, 2014, the Court of Criminal Appeals rendered its opinion in "Thornton v. Texas," (425 S.W.3d 289 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014)), which clarified the holding of Bowen. Because it was decided so recently, neither the State, the appellant, nor the court of appeals had the benefit of the Thornton decision. Therefore, the case was remanded to the court of appeals to consider the issue in light of Thornton. View "Canida v. Texas" on Justia Law