Justia Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Opinion Summaries

In October 2013, a jury convicted appellant Matthew Johnson of capital murder for intentionally causing the death of Nancy Harris, a seventy-six-year-old convenience store clerk, by setting her on fire while he was robbing or attempting to rob her. For this crime, appellant was sentenced to death. In his automatic, direct appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeals, appellant raised sixty-five points of error. After reviewing each, the Court found no merit to any of them, and affirmed appellant’s conviction and sentence. View "Johnson v. Texas" on Justia Law

Applicant Kemos Barnaby plead guilty in a package deal to four separate offenses of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver and was sentenced to four concurrent fifty-year sentences. In his application for writ of habeas corpus, applicant challenged only the voluntariness of his plea to the offense charged in Case No. 09-04-04192-CR. There, the forensic technician assigned to analyze the seized substance was Jonathan Salvador, who was known to have falsified test results. The Court of Criminal Appeals remanded to the trial court so that the parties could present arguments on what standard of review was appropriate for examining materiality. The Court held that materiality of false evidence in the context of a guilty plea should be examined under the same standard used to assess materiality of counsel’s deficient performance in the context of a guilty plea: if applicant had known that the evidence was false he would not have plead guilty but would have insisted on going to trial. The Court inferred that the laboratory report in applicant’s case was falsified, the Court nevertheless found that its falsity was not material to his decision to plead guilty, and denied relief. View "Ex party Barnaby" on Justia Law

Appellee Juan Reyes petitioned for habeas relief, attacking a judgment that imposed community supervision. In support of his application, appellee raised five grounds. Evidence supporting all of these grounds was submitted in either affidavit form or through witnesses at a live hearing. The trial court granted relief on the first ground and did not address the remaining four grounds. Holding that the trial court erred in granting relief on the first ground, the court of appeals reversed the trial court’s judgment and rendered judgment reinstating the guilty plea. The Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that the court of appeals should have remanded the case to the trial court to resolve appellee’s remaining claims. Consequently, it reversed the judgment of the court of appeals and remanded the case to the trial court for further proceedings. View "Texas v. Reyes" on Justia Law

Relator was convicted of capital murder for killing his two children, Javier and Diana Medina. The Office of Capital Writs filed an initial writ of habeas corpus application with the convicting court on relator’s behalf. Counsel raised several Cronic- and Strickland-based claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel, predicated on trial counsel’s abandonment of the adversarial testing of the State’s punishment case. The habeas judge issued an order designating those claims for further development and held a hearing. Following the hearing, the State noticed its intent to call relator as a witness at the evidentiary hearing. The issue this case presented for the Court of Criminal Appeals’ review was whether the State, in a post-conviction evidentiary hearing on a writ of habeas corpus, was clearly prohibited from calling the writ applicant to testify (under a grant of both use and derivative-use immunity) about whether he was aware of and agreed to trial counsel’s strategy at the punishment stage of his capital-murder trial. Because this case was presented to the Court of Criminal Appeals as a writ of prohibition, the Court was not asked to decide the precise scope of the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination. Instead, the issue was whether the trial court made a judicial decision or a ministerial one. Specifically, the Court had to decide whether the law on this issue was so clear that the trial court had no choice but to prohibit the State from calling relator to the stand. After examining the relevant case law regarding the scope of the Fifth Amendment from the United States Supreme Court and Texas precedent, the Court of Criminal Appeals could not say that the trial court had a ministerial duty to prohibit the State from calling relator to testify. Therefore, the Court denied the writ of prohibition. View "In re Hector Medina" on Justia Law

Appellant Cody McKay was convicted of injury to a child with the culpable mental state of criminal negligence after spilling hot water on the back of the two-year-old victim. Appellant was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, which was then suspended, and he was subsequently placed on community supervision for five years. Appellant appealed ,arguing that there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction. The court of appeals affirmed. The Court of Criminal Appeals granted Appellant’s petition for discretionary review to consider whether the court of appeals erred in determining there was sufficient evidence of Appellant’s criminal negligence. After review, the Court concluded the evidence was insufficient to support Appellant’s conviction, and reversed the court of appeals and vacated the conviction. View "McKay v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant was charged with ten counts of sexual assault of a child and indecency with a child. Based on the advice of his counsel, he declined the State’s plea bargain recommending a ten-year sentence and proceeded to trial. The jury found Appellant guilty and gave him eight life sentences and one twenty-year sentence. He filed a motion for new trial claiming ineffective assistance of counsel. The trial judge granted the motion for new trial and motion to require the State to reinstate the plea bargain offer of ten years. The State reinstated the plea offer, and Appellant accepted it. The trial judge rejected the plea agreement and advised Appellant that he could withdraw his guilty plea and go to trial or accept a 25-year sentence. Appellant rejected the 25-year sentence and moved to recuse the trial judge on the basis of demonstrated prejudice. The judge voluntarily recused herself, and a new judge was assigned to the case. Appellant filed another motion to require the State to re-offer the ten-year deal. The new judge declared that the slate was wiped clean by the original judge’s recusal but that she would accept a new agreement if one were reached. The State offered a plea deal of 25 years and Appellant accepted, pleading guilty to five of the counts in exchange for the waiver of the other five counts. The judge accepted the deal and signed the judgments of conviction. Appellant appealed, claiming that he was entitled to a ten-year plea-bargain offer from the State and that the trial court was required to accept the ten-year plea agreement. Concluding that Appellant was indeed prejudiced, the court of appeals determined that the proper remedy was to require the State to reoffer the ten-year plea bargain and to have the agreement presented to a judge who had not recused herself. The court of appeals reversed the trial court and remanded the case with instructions for the State to re-offer the ten-year plea bargain. The State appealed. The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed: Appellant received everything he requested in this case: the trial judge granted his motion for new trial, granted his motion to require the State to reoffer the most favorable plea deal, and then recused herself so that a new judge could hear the case. The new judge was not required to give Appellant what the previous judge, whom he sought to recuse, had already given him. The 25-year sentence that was offered by the State, agreed to by Appellant, and accepted by the trial court was reinstated. View "Rodriguez v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant was found guilty of forgery, and on appeal the court of appeals reversed the conviction, holding that the evidence was insufficient because there was no proof that Appellant had the intent to defraud or harm another. The State Prosecuting Attorney filed a petition for discretionary review, which was granted. The State argued that the court of appeals did not examine the totality of the evidence or reasonable inferences therefrom. After review, the Court of Criminal Appeals agreed and reversed. View "Ramsey v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant was convicted of hindering apprehension after encouraging her boyfriend, Demarcus Degrate, to run from United States Marshals who were arresting him. Because the State alleged that Appellant knew that Degrate was charged with a felony, her offense was elevated to a third-degree felony, and she was sentenced to four years in prison. Appellant appealed, arguing that the evidence was insufficient to support her conviction. The court of appeals found the evidence to be sufficient and affirmed. Appellant appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeals, arguing that the evidence was legally sufficient to prove that she knew Degrate was charged with a felony offense. The Court found that the evidence in this case was insufficient to support Appellant’s felony conviction. However, the State was correct in asserting that the element of knowledge that Degrate was being arrested for a felony offense was an aggravating factor and, therefore, the trial court necessarily found the essential elements of misdemeanor hindering apprehension. Therefore, the Court of Criminal Appeals reformed the judgment to reflect a conviction of misdemeanor hindering apprehension and remanded the case to the trial court to conduct a new punishment hearing. View "Nowlin v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Charles Owens was charged with felony murder after he led police on a high-speed chase during which he hit two vehicles and killed one of the drivers. Before trial, he filed a motion arguing that he was incompetent to stand trial. Appellant claimed that, due to traumatic brain injury caused by the crash, he suffered from amnesia and was unable to remember anything about the wreck. After a mental-health assessment, the defense expert concluded that, even if Appellant did suffer from amnesia (which the expert could not rule out), such condition did not render him incompetent to stand trial. At the competency trial, Appellant called the expert to the stand to testify about his conclusions, but before the expert could testify regarding the substance of his report, Appellant objected to his own witness and argued that the expert was not qualified to be appointed or testify as a competency expert. As grounds for his objection, Appellant contended that the witness did not meet a necessary continuing-education requirement. The judge allowed Appellant to argue that the expert was not statutorily allowed to be appointed but otherwise overruled his objection and allowed the expert to testify. Appellant was found competent and later convicted of felony murder. He appealed, and the court of appeals reversed and remanded for a new trial. It held that the trial court erred because the expert did not meet the statutory qualifications for a competency expert and that Appellant was harmed by that error. The Court of Criminal Appeals disagreed with that judgment, and reversed. View "Owens v. Texas" on Justia Law

The trial judge granted Larry Swearingen’s request for post-conviction DNA testing of several pieces of evidence under Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 64. The judge also conditionally granted Swearingen’s motion to release certain evidence for preliminary testing to determine whether the evidence contained biological material. The Court of Criminal Appeals found that Swearingen failed to satisfy Chapter 64’s requirements and reversed the judge’s order. View "Swearingen v. Texas" on Justia Law