Justia Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Opinion Summaries

In 2018, Appellant Christopher Rubio was convicted by a jury of the capital murder of the mother of his children and her new boyfriend. Because the State had not sought the death penalty, Appellant was automatically sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. On the same day the verdict was rendered, and the sentence was pronounced, Appellant filed a general form motion for new trial, challenging the verdict as contrary to the law and the evidence. The motion was filed for the purpose of giving the court reporter more time to file the record with the court of appeals. The trial court promptly overruled it. Exactly thirty days later, Appellant, represented by new counsel, filed a motion for leave to file an amended motion for new trial along with an amended motion for new trial. The latter motion alleged new grounds upon which Appellant sought a new trial. He also filed eleven additional exhibits in support of his amended motion. The State objected, arguing that the amended motion was untimely and that the trial court should take no action on it. Nevertheless, seventy-two days after the sentence was pronounced, the trial court conducted a hearing on the amended motion. The State again objected that the amended motion was untimely. The State’s objection was overruled, and the trial court heard evidence on the motion. Following the hearing, the trial court denied the amended motion on the merits. The question presented for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' review was what happens when a defendant timely files a motion for new trial, the trial court overrules that motion, and then the defendant tries to file an amended motion, all within the same 30-day window of time within which motions for new trial are permitted to be filed. Is a trial court vested with discretion to grant leave of court permitting a defendant to file an amended motion for new trial even after the trial court has overruled an initial motion for new trial? We conclude that the trial court does have that discretion. The Court therefore reversed the judgment of the court of appeals. View "Rubio v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Cornell Witcher was convicted of continuous sexual abuse of a child. Holding that the evidence was insufficient to support the conviction, the court of appeals reversed the judgment. The question in this case was whether the State proved that Appellant’s sexual abuse of the victim occurred over a period of thirty days or more. The parties agreed there was evidence that the last instance of abuse occurred on July 26, 2018, two days before the child was examined by medical personnel. "For the evidence to be sufficient to show a period of abuse of thirty days or more, then, there must be some evidence from which a rational jury could infer that the abuse began on or before June 26, 2018." The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found the abuse began when the victim’s brother went to jail and that he went to jail “around” June 10, 2018. The court of appeals concluded that a rational jury could only speculate from this evidence that the abuse began on or before June 26. The Court disagreed, holding that a rational jury could have inferred it from the evidence. View "Witcher v. Texas" on Justia Law

In November 1998, Appellee Leonardo Garcia pleaded guilty to misdemeanor theft. In May 2007, he pleaded guilty to another misdemeanor theft charge. On that charge, he was sentenced to ten days in jail with three days credit for time served. At the time of both pleas, Appellee was not a United States citizen. Appellee was granted post-conviction habeas corpus relief and his misdemeanor was vacated. The issue this case presented for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was whether the State could appeal the trial court's order that granted habeas relief and vacated the misdemeanor conviction. The Court held that here, the trial court’s order granting habeas corpus relief and vacating Appellee’s misdemeanor conviction effectively granted a new trial. Under Code of Criminal Procedure Article 44.01, the State could appeal a trial court’s order granting a new trial. Consequently, the court of appeals erroneously held that the State lacked the ability to appeal the trial court’s order granting habeas corpus relief. The Court reversed the court of appeals’ judgment and remanded to the court of appeals to consider the merits of the State’s appeal. View "Texas v. Garcia" on Justia Law

In 2018, Appellant Terry Martin was stopped for multiple traffic violations while riding a motorcycle on U.S. Highway 87 in Lubbock County, Texas. During the stop, Corporal Michael Macias observed that Appellant was wearing a motorcycle vest, or “cut,” that read “Cossacks MC.” After patting him down, Officer Macias asked if Appellant had any firearms on him, to which Appellant responded that he had a pistol inside his vest. Officer Macias placed Martin in handcuffs while stating “I take it by your cut you’re a Cossack?” Appellant answered, “Yes, sir.” Appellant’s motorcycle “cut” contained Sergeant’s stripes and a portion that said “Cossacks MC, Lubbock County, Mid-Cities, Texas.” Corporal Macias believed, based on his training and experience, that the Cossacks were a criminal street gang. Appellant was ultimately charged with unlawfully carrying a weapon (UCW) as a member of a criminal street gang, a Class A misdemeanor. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted the State Prosecuting Attorney’s petition for discretionary review to decide whether the unlawful carrying of a weapon by a gang member required proof the defendant was continuously or regularly committing gang crimes. The court of appeals found that the language of the statute plainly did, relying on the holding from the Fourteenth Court of Appeals in Ex parte Flores. To this, the Court of Criminal Appeals agreed, and adopted and applied the holding from Ex parte Flores in that, to be a gang member for purposes of prosecution under Texas Penal Code section 46.02(a-1)(2)(C), an individual must be one of three or more persons with a common identifying sign, symbol, or identifiable leadership and must also continuously or regularly associate in the commission of criminal activities. View "Martin v. Texas" on Justia Law

Zena Collins Stephens appealed both the court of appeals’ denial of a pretrial writ of habeas corpus and its reversal of the district court’s decision to quash Count I of the indictment. Stephens was elected to the position of sheriff of Jefferson County, Texas in 2016. While investigating someone else, the FBI uncovered information regarding potential campaign-finance violations concerning Stephens. The FBI then turned this information over to the Texas Rangers. The Rangers’ investigation concluded Stephens received individual cash campaign contributions in excess of $100. A grand jury indicted Stephens on three counts: Count I: tampering with a government record in violation of Texas Penal Code section 37.10 “by reporting a $5,000.00 individual cash contribution in the political contributions of $50.00 or less section of said Report;” iIn Counts II and III, unlawfully making or accepting a contribution in violation of Texas Election Code section 253.033(a) by accepting cash contributions in excess of $100 from two different individuals. On appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Stephens asked: could the Texas Legislature delegate to the Attorney General, a member of the executive department, the prosecution of election-law violations in district and inferior courts? To this, the Court answered "no:" because Texas Election Code section 273.021 delegated to the Attorney General a power more properly assigned to the judicial department, the statute was unconstitutional. Therefore, the Court reversed the decision of the court of appeals and remanded the case to the trial court to dismiss the indictment. View "Texas v. Stephens" on Justia Law

Appellee successfully moved to quash his two-count indictment for state-jail felony possession of penalty group one controlled substances (cocaine and methamphetamine) on grounds that its enhancement paragraphs were invalid. The State appealed. The court of appeals reversed the trial court’s ruling and re-instated the indictment. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted Appellee’s petition for discretionary review to decide whether an aggravated state-jail felony could be enhanced under the habitual offender statute. To this, the Court answered "yes" and affirmed the court of appeals' judgment. View "Texas v. Kahookele" on Justia Law

In two separate indictments, Appellant Johnny Joe Avalos was charged with capital murder for the serial killing of five women over the course of several years. The State waived the death penalty, and Appellant pled guilty to two capital murders, judicially confessing in the process to murdering all five of the alleged victims. In pre-trial proceedings, he preserved his argument that the only remaining punishment - mandatory life without the possibility of parole - was unconstitutional as applied to him because he was intellectually disabled. The trial court accepted Appellant’s plea but rejected his claim that to automatically assess life without parole against him, without allowing the consideration of mitigating evidence, violated the Eighth Amendment. Accordingly, the trial court sentenced Appellant to two life sentences without the possibility of parole, as required by statute when the State waives the death penalty in Texas. The Court of Appeals extended the ban on automatic life-without-parole sentences from Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012), to cover murder defendants who were intellectually disabled. A panel of another court of appeals held that such an extension was not appropriate, albeit in an unpublished opinion. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted the State’s petition for discretionary review to examine whether the Supreme Court’s decision in Miller should have been so extended. The Court concluded that it should not, and reversed the Court of Appeals’ judgment. View "Avalos v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Orlando Bell was charged with failure to timely report a change of address in violation of his sex-offender-registration obligations under Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 62, which as applied to these circumstances was a third-degree felony. At trial, the State sought to enhance Appellant’s punishment under the habitual-offender statute by alleging that he had twice previously been convicted of a felony offense, thereby subjecting him to a possible range of punishment from twenty-five to ninety-nine years’ imprisonment or life. Following a trial by jury, Appellant was found guilty of the failure-to-register offense. At punishment, the unobjected-to jury charge mistakenly instructed the jury to find the enhancement allegations true if it found that Appellant’s second prior felony conviction became final after the commission of the first felony offense. The correct statutory language in Section 12.42(d), however, required a finding that the first conviction became final prior to the commission of the second felony. But the prosecutor effectively articulated the correct law in closing argument. The jury found the enhancements true and assessed a sentence of fifty years’ imprisonment, which was within the permissible range of punishment for habitual offenders under Section 12.42(d) but longer than the maximum allowable sentence for an unenhanced third-degree felony offense. On direct appeal, the Court of Appeals rejected Appellant’s sole argument that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction. The court, however, sua sponte determined that the punishment-phase jury instructions did not properly authorize the enhancements. The issue this case presented for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' review was whether, if a punishment-phase jury charge fails to properly track the language in the habitual-offender statute by misstating the statute’s sequencing requirement, should the resulting error be treated as an illegal sentence, or should it instead be treated as jury-charge error subject to a harm analysis? The Court held that the latter was correct. Accordingly, the Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals which held that such error resulted in an illegal sentence. The case was remanded for a harm analysis. View "Bell v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Duke Edward was convicted of felony assault for beating his girlfriend. The offense was elevated to a third-degree felony based in part on the existence of a “dating relationship” between Appellant and the victim. On appeal, the Court of Appeals reversed Appellant’s conviction, finding the evidence insufficient to meet the statutory requirements under Family Code Section 71.0021(b) for establishing a dating relationship. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted the State’s petition for discretionary review to address whether the Court of Appeal erred in holding that evidence of a dating relationship was insufficient where the State presented evidence that the victim referred to Appellant as her “boyfriend” when speaking to law enforcement immediately after the assault, as well as other circumstantial evidence suggesting the existence of an intimate relationship. The Court of Criminal Appeals found the Court of Appeal erred, and reversed that court's judgment. The trial court's judgment of conviction was affirmed. View "Edward v. Texas" on Justia Law

In September 2015, a jury convicted Appellant Gabriel Hall of the 2011 murder of Edwin Shaar, Jr. in the course of committing or attempting to commit burglary. 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 court sentenced Appellant to death. Upon automatic appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Appellant raised fifteen points of error. Finding none of merit, the Court affirmed the trial court's judgment of conviction and death sentence. View "Hall v. Texas" on Justia Law