Briggs v. Texas

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Appellant Sandra Briggs pled no contest to intoxication manslaughter of a peace officer. She claimed in a motion for new trial that her plea was involuntary because case law decided after she pled would have changed her mind, and she would have exercised her right to a jury trial. The trial court denied Briggs’s motion for new trial, but the Court of appeals reversed the trial court’s decision, finding that, “having the benefit of [the 2013 Missouri v.] McNeely [opinion] and its progeny,” Briggs’s attorney, in 2012, “misrepresented the law to Briggs as it relates to the admissibility of her blood-draw evidence.” The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that the court of appeals erred: [w]hen a defendant waives the right to have a jury determine guilt or innocence and admits or does not contest guilt, the defendant does so under the law existing at the time of the plea. The fact that Briggs’s attorney did not anticipate subsequent changes in the law does not impugn the truth or reliability of Briggs’s plea.” View "Briggs v. Texas" on Justia Law