Justia Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Opinion Summaries

The issue this case presented for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim stemming from allegedly bad advice about probation eligibility. Specifically, the issue was the measure of prejudice when an attorney mistakenly tells his client that he was eligible for probation from the trial court: does the defendant have to show a reasonable likelihood of a different outcome if he had elected the jury for punishment instead of the court? Or does the measure of prejudice focus on the defendant’s decision making? The Court concluded the correct measure should focus on the impact of the bad advice on the defendant’s decision making and does not require a showing of a different outcome. Here, the Court of Criminal Appeals was asked to decide whether the court of appeals required Appellant to show a reasonable likelihood of a more favorable outcome from the jury than he got from the trial court. The Court held that even if the court of appeals used the wrong standard, it reached the right result because the record was silent about the effect of the attorney’s advice on Appellant’s decision making. Consequently, the court of appeals' judgment was affirmed. View "Swinney v. Texas" on Justia Law

In May 2017, a jury convicted Applicant Joseph Colone of capital murder, murder of more than one person during the same criminal transaction. From this, he was sentenced to death. As was noted in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' opinion on direct appeal, the State’s case against Applicant included evidence that police investigators found a “dark knit glove” and a “blue towel” at the crime scene. DNA analysis by the DPS Crime Laboratory showed that Applicant “could not be excluded as a contributor to DNA found on the glove and blue towel.” In June 2019, Applicant filed his initial postconviction application for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing, among other things, that the State suppressed material evidence showing that the DPS Crime Laboratory had mishandled the glove and towel prior to their being subjected to DNA testing. He also claimed that, whether knowingly or unknowingly, one of the DPS analysts who testified at trial gave the jury a false impression when he suggested that there was nothing “awry” with the manner in which DPS handled the glove and towel. In March 2021, the parties jointly submitted agreed findings of fact and conclusions of law that, if adopted, would counsel in favor of relief on Applicant’s Brady and Chabot claims. In July 2021, the habeas court adopted the parties’ agreed findings of fact and conclusions of law, and forwarded those findings and conclusions to the Court of Criminal Appeals, recommending that Applicant be granted relief on the basis of his Brady and Chabot claims. Deferring to the habeas court's findings, the Court of Criminal Appeals granted relief. View "Ex parte Joseph Colone" on Justia Law

Appellant Daniel Garcia was convicted by jury of aggravated sexual assault. He was sentenced to twelve years’ imprisonment and ordered him to pay $1,000 in restitution to the Office of the Attorney General. The court of appeals modified the trial court’s judgment to delete the restitution requirement and affirmed Appellant’s conviction as modified. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted review to consider, among other things, whether an objection was required to preserve Appellant’s challenge to the restitution order. The Court concluded that an objection was required, none was made, and Appellant forfeited his challenge to the restitution order, so it did not reach the remaining grounds for review. View "Garcia v. Texas" on Justia Law

Applicant Ray Hicks pled guilty to attempted forgery of a government instrument in 2013 and was sentenced, under a plea agreement, to 180 days of confinement in a state jail facility. Applicant filed this application for a writ of habeas corpus, contending he was actually innocent because subsequent analysis showed the $100 bill he possessed was genuine. Applicant was charged with forgery but ultimately pled guilty to attempted forgery. More than five years later, the United States Secret Service notified the Webster Police Department by letter that Applicant’s $100 bill was genuine. The habeas court found Applicant was actually innocent of the charged offense and any possible lesser included offenses based on newly discovered evidence neither introduced nor available to the defense at trial. Specifically, the habeas court found the State could not have proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the Applicant had intent to defraud because the bill was not actually forged. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals did not find Applicant was actually innocent, but instead, granted relief on the ground of an involuntary plea. View "Ex parte Ray Hicks" on Justia Law

Before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals were two distinct issues, one at the guilt stage and one at the punishment stage. The guilt stage issue was whether Appellant Happy Pham was entitled to a “threat of deadly force” instruction under Penal Code section 9.04. To this, the Court concluded he was not entitled to such an instruction because, by shooting the victim, he acted contrary to the statute’s requirement that his purpose in threatening deadly force be “limited to creating an apprehension that he will use deadly force if necessary.” The punishment stage issue was whether trial counsel was ineffective for failing to call punishment stage witnesses to give positive character testimony about Appellant. The Court concluded prejudice was not established because Appellant’s status as a fugitive and drug dealer made the proposed positive character testimony by these witnesses "problematic." Concluding that Appellant’s guilt and punishment stage contentions are without merit, the Court affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals. View "Pham v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Jace Laws was charged with two counts of assaulting a peace officer. When defense counsel received the proposed jury charge, he learned that the judge intended to require an alternate juror to retire with the jury while it deliberated. Appellant objected to the alternate juror’s presence during deliberations, and the trial judge overruled the objection. Appellant was subsequently convicted and sentenced to thirty years’ confinement for the first assault and forty years’ confinement for the second assault. Appellant appealed and argued that the trial court erred under Article 36.22 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure. The court of appeals refused to address the merits of Appellant’s claim, instead holding that Appellant’s objection was general because he could have been referring to a constitutional claim that alternate jurors could not be present during deliberations based on the “No More Than Twelve Jurors” Clause of Article V, Section 13 of the Texas Constitution. The court of appeals also faulted Appellant for not saying “Article 36.22” when he objected. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found the record showed that the legal ground for Appellant’s objection was apparent to the prosecutor and the trial judge. Appellant repeatedly said that the alternate juror should not be allowed to retire with the jury because the danger that the alternate juror might participate in the deliberations was too high, that possible violations could not be “policed,” and that he did not understand why the alternate could not be in another room and “brought up to speed” in the unlikely event that a juror became disabled. While the Court also granted review to determine if Article 36.22 was violated when the alternate juror retired with the jury while it deliberated, and if so, whether Appellant was harmed, it declined to address those issues at this time. Instead, the Court remand this case for the court of appeals to address the merits of Appellant’s claim in the first instance. View "Laws v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Bradley Shumway voluntarily confessed to his pastor and then later to his wife: he pushed aside a pre-verbal, seventeen-month-old infant’s diaper and touched her genital region with his hands, mouth, and penis. While the State corroborated the confessions by presenting details showing opportunity, motive, and a guilty conscience, the confessions themselves were the only evidence that the touching had occurred. Appellant challenged his dual convictions for indecency with a child by arguing that the State’s evidence was not sufficient to satisfy the corpus delicti rule. The issue this case presented for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' review was whether, a defendant confesses to the offense of indecency with a child against a child who can’t communicate and the conduct resulted in no apparent injury, should a conviction be overturned because there is no evidence of the crime itself besides the defendant’s confession? The Court responded no: when sufficient evidence exists in the record to support the conviction for a sexual offense with no perceptible harm against a pre-verbal child victim and a defendant’s confession is sufficiently corroborated, the failure to satisfy the corpus delicti rule should not bar conviction. View "Shumway v. Texas" on Justia Law

In the course of Appellant Christopher Holder’s capital murder trial, the State admitted evidence of his cell-phone site location information (CSLI) to establish his whereabouts during the weekend in which the offense was committed. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ultimately concluded that this evidence was obtained in violation of Article I, Section 9, of the Texas Constitution. The Court also concluded that the evidence should have been suppressed, and it remanded the case for the court of appeals to determine in the first instance whether Appellant was harmed “when the trial court failed to suppress the records under Article 38.23(a).” Following the Court of Criminal Appeals’ lead in Love v. Texas, 543 S.W.3d 835 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016), the court of appeals on remand conducted a constitutional harm analysis under Rule 44.2(a) of the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure. Under that standard of harm, the court of appeals was unable to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the CSLI evidence did not contribute to the jury’s verdict. It reversed Appellant’s conviction and remanded the case for further proceedings. As the court of appeals acknowledged, since Love was decided, it had come into question whether the Court properly applied Rule 44.2(a)’s standard for harm with respect to constitutional error in that case. The State petitioned the Court of Criminal Appeals to determine whether the appropriate standard for determining harm is that articulated in Rule 44.2(b). The Court determined the proper harm analysis was the one contained in Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure Rule 44.2(b), not 44.2(a). With regard to the State's second ground for review, arguing the admission of Appellant's CSLI records was harmless under Rule 44.2(b), the Court of Criminal Appeals found it did not ordinarily determine questions of harm in the first instance. Accordingly, the Court vacated the judgment of the court of appeals and remand the case to that court to conduct a harm analysis under Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 44.2(b). View "Holder v. Texas" on Justia Law

In 2013, Applicant Aaron Matthews pled guilty to delivery of a controlled substance, namely cocaine, in an amount less than one gram, a state jail felony offense. He was sentenced to 180 days. In 2019, Applicant was notified that Officer Gerald Goines of the Houston Police Department - the officer working undercover at the time of his alleged offense and the sole witness against him - was under investigation for falsifying evidence, and Goines had been relieved from duty. Applicant claimed the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals should infer that Officer Goines’s testimony against him was false and that Applicant’s right to due process was violated. The Court responded by filing and set this cause to address whether the requirements for the inference of falsity that this Court adopted in Ex parte Coty, 418 S.W.3d 597 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014) should apply in cases involving a police officer with a demonstrated pattern of misconduct in drug-related cases. The Court concluded that it should, and remanded for the convicting court to "look to whether it has been shown that Goines provided false information in a search warrant affidavit in 2019 - and thus, that he committed repeated acts of misconduct in pursuit of illicit-drug investigations. The convicting court should also determine whether the alleged act of misconduct in this case occurred 'within roughly the same period of time as the other misconduct.' A stipulation of these facts alone will not suffice." View "Ex parte Aaron Matthews" on Justia Law

The State sought to illustrate the testimony of an accident reconstruction expert along with testimony regarding other forensic evidence with a series of computer animations. The three computer animations at issue each showed a moving, 3-D diagram of Appellant Allen Pugh’s truck from three different angles colliding with a human figure, consistent with the testimony of the State’s sponsoring accident reconstruction expert. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agreed with the court of appeals that the computer animations were properly admitted. The computer animations were relevant, were authenticated, and had probative value that was not substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. View "Pugh v. Texas" on Justia Law