Justia Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Opinion Summaries

In a subsequent application for writ of habeas corpus, Applicant Stephen Barbee sought relief under McCoy v. Louisiana, 138 S. Ct. 1500 (2018), which he claimed was a previously unavailable legal basis for his claim. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals filed and set his application to address whether he was entitled to relief under McCoy. After review, the Court concluded that the legal basis for the current claim was previously available, and even if it were not, Applicant failed to allege facts that would have entitled him to relief under McCoy. Consequently, the Court dismissed this subsequent application as an abuse of the writ. View "Ex parte Stephen Dale Barbee" on Justia Law

Relator was John Best, the District Attorney for the 119th Judicial District, and this case involved five codefendants who were all indicted for offenses arising out of the same criminal episode, a shooting that occurred in July, 2017. Stephen Jennings, Kristen Jennings, and David Navarro were all indicted for capital murder and lesser offenses. Garry Jennings was indicted for murder and lesser offenses. And Angella Wray was indicted for aggravated kidnapping and engaging in organized criminal activity. The five cases were assigned to four district courts, with Stephen Jennings’ and Kristen Jennings’ cases assigned to Respondent’s court, the 340th Judicial District Court. The State did not waive the death penalty in the three capital murder cases. Pursuant to Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, Article 38.43, the State submitted biological evidence collected in these cases to the DPS Crime Lab for DNA testing. Stephen Jennings and Navarro moved in their respective courts to have the DNA testing halted, arguing that some of the biological samples may not have been sufficient for the State to conduct its DNA testing, and for the five defendants to be able to retest the evidence. Navarro requested that the four trial courts agree on a single DNA testing policy. Navarro’s judge, the Presiding Judge of the 51st Judicial District Court, signed an “Order to Halt DNA Testing until Further Order” that directed Relator to provide all five codefendants with notice related to the scientific testing of evidence collected in these cases. Respondent found that the State’s proposed DNA testing would not provide enough remaining DNA sample or extract for each of the five defendants to conduct their own confirmatory testing of the biological evidence. Respondent signed an order providing that “any DNA testing conducted on the biological evidence in these cases be recorded by both audio and video.” Relator filed a motion for reconsideration asking Respondent to withdraw his orders. When this motion was denied, Relator filed his petition for mandamus relief, arguing Respondent lacked judicial authority to enter his orders, which in Relator's view, contravened Article 38.43 and the Separation of Powers Doctrine. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals concluded Respondent exceeded his discretionary authority in discovery matters by ordering the State to create evidence in the form of a digital audiovisual recording of DPS’s DNA testing in these cases. "As usual, a formal writ of mandamus and/or prohibition will not issue unless Respondent should fail to rescind its order and allow DPS to proceed with the DNA testing without memorialization beyond that contemplated by Article 38.43(k), i.e., its bench notes." View "In re State of Texas ex rel. John H. Best" on Justia Law

Appellant Jonathan Day fled after being told that he was under arrest and that there was an active arrest warrant out for him. He was charged with and convicted of evading arrest or detention. The court of appeals found the evidence insufficient to prove that the attempted arrest or detention was “lawful.” It held that while Appellant’s initial detention might have been justified, his continued detention, during which Appellant fled after police discovered an outstanding arrest warrant for him, was not. The court of appeals reversed the conviction and ordered an acquittal. After review, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the court of appeals' judgment because a jury could have rationally found the officer’s attempted arrest or detention was lawful in light of the outstanding warrant. View "Day v. Texas" on Justia Law

The issue presented for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was whether the Confrontation Clause was violated when the trial judge allowed Suzanne DeVore, a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE), to testify against appellant James Haggard, from Montana, using a two-way video system. The Court concluded based on the trial court record that admitting DeVore's remote testimony violated the Confrontation clause. The Court reversed the court of appeals, and remanded the case for a new harm analysis. View "Haggard v. Texas" on Justia Law

Acting on evidence that two men had been tortured and robbed at a business in Houston, police obtained a warrant to search the business. The warrant authorized the police to seize any and all "ITEMS CONSTITUTING EVIDENCE CONSTITUTING AGGRAVATED ASSAULT AND ROBBERY that may be found therein . . . including,” among other things, “audio/video surveillance video and/or video equipment.” Pursuant to this warrant, the police seized three computer hard drives from the business. Upon analysis, one hard drive — the only hard drive at issue in this appeal, was found to contain surveillance footage depicting much of the incident leading to charges against Foreman for aggravated kidnapping and aggravated robbery. At the hearing on Foreman's motion to suppress evidence found on the hard drive, Foreman argued the warrant affidavit did not establish probable cause that audio and video surveillance equipment would even be found at the business. The trial court denied Foreman's motion; he was ultimately convicted on both offenses and sentenced to fifty years' confinement. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals determined the magistrate who signed the search warrant was justified in issuing the warrant authorizing police to seize the equipment from the business, thus affirming denial of Foreman's motion to suppress. View "Foreman v. Texas" on Justia Law

The court of appeals reversed Appellant Samuel Ukwuachu’s conviction for sexual assault by concluding that the State improperly used cell-phone call and location records to impeach two defense witnesses, thereby resulting in the introduction of false evidence in violation of his due process rights. Yet, the phone records at issue were never admitted into evidence nor made part of the record. Further, no expert testimony was introduced to establish that the State misled the jury regarding any particular information shown in the records. Without these phone records or such expert testimony, Appellant could not prove that the State actually elicited witness testimony that conflicted with the substance of those records. Accordingly, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals determined Appellant failed to make the requisite showing of falsity that must underlie any false-evidence due process claim. The Court, therefore, reversed the judgment of the court of appeals granting Appellant a new trial, and remanded this case for consideration of Appellant’s remaining issues on appeal. View "Ukwuachu v. Texas" on Justia Law

A district attorney called a subordinate into his office to discuss a case and review the case file. Within a few weeks, the district attorney’s official status ended, he became part of a private law firm, and a member of that private law firm substituted in as defense counsel in the case. The State moved to disqualify the entire firm. The trial court denied the motion, but the court of appeals granted mandamus relief, ordering the trial court to disqualify the entire firm. The trial court sought mandamus relief from the court of appeals’s order. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that under "unequivocal, well-settled law," the former district attorney was disqualified from acting as defense counsel. But the Court also concluded that the same cannot be said for the other members of the law firm. Consequently, the Court denied mandamus in part and granted mandamus in part. View "In re Honorable Velia Meza, 226th Jud. Dist. Ct., Bexar Cty, Texas" on Justia Law

In November 2016, a jury convicted Appellant Amos Wells, III of capital murder for the 2013 murders of Chanice and Annette Reed committed during the same criminal transaction. 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. Upon automatic appeal to the Texas Court of Appeals, Appellant raised thirteen points of error. After review, the Court found no merit to any contention and affirmed the trial court's judgment and sentence. View "Wells v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Kyle Kuykendall was charged in a single indictment with two separate instances of third-degree felony failure-to-appear. He was convicted on both counts and sentenced to concurrent ten-year sentences. He appealed, arguing that punishing him for both offenses violated Double Jeopardy (applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment). Appellant argued that because he had been required to appear on a single occasion to answer for both charges against him, he could have only committed one offense when he failed to appear. The Court of Appeals agreed with this argument, holding that because Appellant failed to appear only once, he could only be punished once under the Double Jeopardy Clause. It vacated his conviction on the second failure-to-appear count. The State Prosecuting Attorney petitioned for discretionary review to challenge the appellate court's judgment. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the Court of Appeals, finding that the failure to appear statute created as many actionable offenses as there were conditional releases according to the terms of which the actor failed to appear. In other words, the “allowable unit of prosecution” for the offense of failure to appear was the number of discrete conditional releases for which he was required to appear and did not: "it is not simply the number of times he failed to show up before some adjudicative body. In this case, when Appellant failed to appear at the combined setting, he committed two distinct offenses." The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment was not violated. View "Kuykendall v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Antonio Lopez confessed to killing his 11-month-old foster child. He was indicted on two counts for capital murder and murder. He filed a motion to suppress, arguing that his confession was inadmissible because it was involuntary under the Due Process Clause and Article 38.21 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure. According to appellant, he confessed only after police told him that, if he did not, he and his wife might be arrested and that, if they were, Child Protective Services (CPS) might take away their other children. The trial court denied the motion and filed findings of fact and conclusions of law. A jury acquitted Lopez of capital murder, but convicted him of murder. The trial court sentenced him to 35 years’ confinement based on the agreement of the parties. On appeal, Lopez argued the trial court should have granted the motion to suppress, but the court of appeals affirmed the lower court’s ruling. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals agreed with the appellate court that Lopez’s confession was voluntary, but not based on the probable-cause analysis used by the court of appeals. Rather, the Court reached that result by examining the totality of the circumstances surrounding the confession: "The existence of probable cause is only a factor in the analysis." View "Lopez v. Texas" on Justia Law