Justia Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Opinion Summaries

The issue this case presented for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was at what point could an appellant timely object to the thirteenth juror's presence when an alternate juror retires with the jury and was present during deliberations: when the jury retires to deliberate, or when an appellant becomes aware that the alternate was present during deliberations. The Court concluded that the grounds for Appellant’s objection to the alternate juror being sent into the jury room were not apparent until counsel became aware of the error. Because Appellant’s objection, motion for mistrial, and motion for new trial were timely, and the court of appeals erred by failing to reach the merits of Appellant’s statutory and constitutional claims. View "Becerra v. Texas" on Justia Law

The issue this case presented for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals centered on whether a police officer's entry into a residence was reasonable under the Forth Amendment, when a firefighter, in the line of duty, asked law enforcement for a safety check after seeing drug paraphernalia, guns, and flammable liquids in the residence, and whether that officer’s discovery of drug paraphernalia in plain view provided probable cause for a search warrant? The short answer to this question under the specific facts of this case was yes: the Court therefore upheld the court of appeals’ judgment which affirmed the trial court’s denial of Appellant’s motion to suppress the drug evidence found pursuant to a search warrant. View "Martin v. Texas" on Justia Law

In November 2017, a jury convicted Appellant William Hudson of capital murder for murdering Carl and Hannah Johnson. Pursuant to 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. On automatic appeal, Appellant raised two points of error. After reviewing Appellant’s points of error, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found them to be without merit. Consequently, it affirmed the trial court’s judgment and sentence of death. View "Hudson v. Texas" on Justia Law

Applicant Steven Thomas was 16 when he committed capital murder. When he was 19, the juvenile court waived its exclusive jurisdiction and transferred Applicant’s case to district court, where Applicant pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of murder. Decades passed. Applicant did not appeal his transfer or his case or file a writ of habeas corpus. Then, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals decided Moon v. Texas, 451 S.W.3d 28 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014), which held that if an order waiving juvenile jurisdiction did not contain factually-supported, case-specific findings, then the order is invalid, and the district court never acquires jurisdiction. Based upon Moon, Applicant argued that because the order waiving juvenile jurisdiction did not contain factually-supported, case-specific findings, it was invalid, and thus the district court never acquired jurisdiction. The Court of Criminal Appeals found that the type of findings Moon required were neither grounded in the text of the transfer statute, nor in Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541 (1966), the Supreme Court precedent that it purportedly relied upon in Moon. "Requiring them may be good policy, but the lack of case-specific findings has nothing to do with jurisdiction, fundamental constitutional rights, or even the transfer statute itself. The juvenile court’s transfer order in this case may have lacked factually-supported, case-specific findings, but that did not make that order invalid or deprive the district court of jurisdiction." Consequently, the Court determined Applicant was not entitled to habeas corpus relief. View "Ex parte Steven Thomas" on Justia Law

Appellant Anthony Carter was convicted by jury of possession of a Penalty Group 2-A controlled substance, with intent to deliver. He was subsequently sentenced to 90 years in prison and received a $100,000 fine. The court of appeals affirmed his conviction. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted Appellant’s petition for discretionary review to determine whether, in a legal sufficiency analysis, a reviewing court could uphold a conviction if expert testimony as to certain technical elements of an offense was merely conclusory. Having concluded that the testimony in this case was not merely conclusory, the Court affirmed. View "Carter v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Harold Holoman was convicted by jury of misdemeanor assault. The trial judge allowed the State, at the punishment phase of trial, to prove an otherwise-elemental prior conviction that caused Appellant to be convicted of a third degree felony and subject to that felony range of punishment. Appellant argued on appeal that, because the jury found him guilty of a misdemeanor, it was too late for the State to prove that kind of a fact at the punishment phase. The court of appeals agreed, vacated Appellant’s sentence, and remanded for resentencing within the misdemeanor range. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals concurred with the court of appeals and affirmed its judgment. View "Holoman v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Juan Carlos Flores robbed a convenience store, pretending he had a gun. The “gun,” however, was an electric drill covered in plastic bags with a black sleeve over the drill bit. Believing the drill was a gun, the store owner gave Appellant the money from the register. The issue presented for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' review was whether the evidence was legally sufficient to support the finding that the drill was a deadly weapon within the meaning of that term as defined in the Texas Penal Code, when Appellant never attempted to strike, stab, or “drill” anyone, nor did he threaten to do so. The Court concluded there was insufficient evidence to permit a jury to rationally conclude that Appellant used or intended to use the drill in a manner that was capable of causing death or serious bodily injury. The trial court's judgment was reversed, as was the court of appeals' judgment which upheld Appellant’s conviction for aggravated robbery based on his use or exhibition of a deadly weapon. The matter was remanded to the trial court for reformation of Appellant’s judgment to reflect a conviction for the second-degree felony offense of robbery, and for a new trial on punishment. View "Flores v. Texas" on Justia Law

The court of appeals reversed a trial court's second punishment hearing granted pursuant to a writ of habeas corpus. Appellant James Harbin, II was eighteen years old when he shot and killed his father in 1991. The issue at the time of his first trial was whether appellant killed under the immediate influence of sudden passion arising from adequate cause. In the guilt phase of appellant's first trial, the jury charge defined "sudden passion" and "adequate cause," and instructed the jury if it had a reasonable doubt about murder, it would "next consider whether the defendant is guilty of the lesser offense of voluntary manslaughter," which was in accordance with the statute then in effect. Twenty-three years later, appellant sought a new punishment hearing for the State's failure to disclose favorable information about the father's psychiatric history and for defense counsel's ineffective investigation and presentation of mitigating evidence. In the pendency of the new punishment hearing, the law changed. At the second hearing, appellant request a jury instruction on sudden passion under the 1994 law. The trial court denied the request. The court of appeals reversed and remanded for a third punishment hearing. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted the State's petition for discretionary review to determine whether the court of appeals erred in applying the 1994 statute to the offense committed in 1991. The Court concluded the court of appeals erred and reversed its judgment. View "Harbin v. Texas" on Justia Law

The appellants in consolidated cases were charged with occlusion assault under Texas Penal Code Section 22.01(b)(2)(B). At their respective trials, they each requested an instruction on bodily-injury assault as a lesser-included offense of occlusion. Their requests were denied, and they were convicted of occlusion assault. On appeal their cases diverged: The court of appeals in Orlando Ortiz's case held the trial court erred in refusing to instruct the jury on bodily-injury assault, but Dewey Barrett's held that there was no error in refusing the instruction. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted review to decide whether appellants were entitled to an instruction on bodily-injury assault as a lesser included of occlusion. The Court also granted review in Barrett's case to consider whether Irving v. Texas, 176 S.W.3d 842 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005), should have been overruled, and whether multiple injuries from a single attack constituted separate prosecutable assaults. The Court held that bodily-injury assault was not a lesser-included offense of occlusion assault when the disputed element is the injury because the statutorily specified injury of impeding normal breathing or blood circulation is exclusive of other bodily injuries. Consequently, the judgment of the court of appeals in Ortiz was reversed, and the judgment in Barrett was affirmed. Furthermore, the Court held that overruling Irving would have made no difference in Barrett’s case because Irving was inapplicable here. And because the Court could resolve Barrett without addressing whether multiple injuries inflicted in a single attack could be separately prosecuted, it did not reach that ground for review. View "Ortiz v. Texas" on Justia Law

When the alleged victim of a family-violence assault failed to show up for trial, the State sought to introduce her prior out-of-court statements about the assault. Appellant Frederick Brown objected on the basis of his constitutional right to confrontation. The State claimed that the evidence was admissible under the doctrine of forfeiture by wrongdoing. The State produced evidence that Appellant had told an investigator that he did not know the alleged victim’s whereabouts, but the investigator was later able to locate her before trial. Aside from that evidence, the State offered evidence that Appellant lived with the victim shortly before or at the time of trial, that he committed the instant family violence assault offense, and that he had previously committed such an offense against the same victim. After review, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals concluded this evidence was not sufficient to show that an action by the defendant caused the victim’s absence. Consequently, the Court held the doctrine of forfeiture by wrongdoing did not apply in this case. The court of appeals' judgment was reversed and the matter remanded for further proceedings. View "Brown v. Texas" on Justia Law