Justia Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Opinion Summaries

The issue before the Supreme Court in this case was whether the evidence showed that appellant violated a "no contact" condition of probation, when the condition allowed contact by telephone regarding issues of child custody and when appellant and his wife had an arrangement for appellant to babysit their children at his wife's home while she was at work. "What the State had here was just linking-type evidence. Appellant had motive and opportunity for prohibited contact because he expressed buyer's remorse about pleading guilty and his wife did not want the 'no contact' order." The State also had other circumstantial evidence that was "perhaps suspicious," but did not establish the fact of prohibited contact; none of this evidence established that prohibited contact occurred. Without that, all of this evidence was mere "suspicion linked to other suspicion." The Court held that that the evidence was legally insufficient to meet the State's allegation in its motion to revoke, and therefore, the trial court abused its discretion in revoking appellant's probation. Furthermore, the Court held that the court of appeals erred in upholding the trial court's judgment in doing so. The Court reversed the lower courts' judgments and ordered that the State's motion to revoke probation be dismissed. View "Hacker v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Tonya Daughtery signed a construction-service contract with a general contractor to build out office space for her and her husband's window-tinting company. Appellant wrote a $1,657 check as a deposit. The rest of the approximately $48,000 contract price was not due until the project was completed. At that time, however, appellant no longer had the money and gave the contractor an "insufficient funds" check. A jury convicted her of theft of services for obtaining the contractor's service by deception when she gave him the insufficient-funds check after he had completed the build-out. The court of appeals reversed the jury's verdict and rendered a judgment of acquittal because it determined that the evidence was legally insufficient to support the conviction. The Supreme Court granted the State's petition to decide whether the failure to prove that appellant secured the performance of the contract with a "worthless check" was merely an "immaterial variance" or whether the State failed to prove the essential element that an act of deception secured performance of the contractor's services. Upon review, the Court concluded that the State failed to prove the offense of theft of service by deception, so it affirmed the court of appeals. View "Daugherty v. Texas" on Justia Law

The issue before the Supreme Court in this case was whether a law-enforcement officer seeking to obtain a search warrant, under Article 18.01 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, must swear out the affidavit in support of that warrant in the physical presence of the magistrate or whether he may do so telephonically. On June 29, 2008, the appellant was arrested and charged with misdemeanor driving while intoxicated. The stipulated facts established that the appellant was stopped by State Trooper J. Ortega for traveling 80 miles per hour in a 70 mile-per-hour zone. When probable cause to suspect the appellant of driving while intoxicated arose in the course of the stop, Ortega placed appellant under arrest and requested that she provide a breath specimen for testing. The appellant refused, so Ortega filled out an affidavit for a search warrant to obtain a specimen of her blood. Ortega then called Hill County Court at Law Judge A. Lee Harris on the telephone. Ortega and Harris "each recognized the other's voice[,]" and in the course of the telephone conversation, Ortega "swore to and signed" the search warrant affidavit. The trial court denied the appellant's motion to suppress. On appeal, appellant argued that the search warrant was invalid because the affidavit in support of the warrant was not sworn to in the physical presence of the magistrate, as she contends is required by Article 18.01 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The Court of Appeals disagreed, holding that "a face-to-face meeting between the trooper and the judge was not required and the making of the oath over the telephone did not invalidate the search warrant." The Supreme Court concluded that because Ortega and Judge Harris recognized one another's voices on the telephone at the time Ortega swore out his warrant affidavit, it was properly solemnized. And because Ortega reduced the affidavit to writing and faxed it to Judge Harris for filing, the basis for probable cause was properly memorialized. Under these circumstances, the Court held that Article 18.01(b)'s requirement of a "sworn affidavit" was satisfied. View "Clay v. Texas" on Justia Law

A Relator filed an application for a writ of mandamus to the Supreme Court after the Court of Appeals dismissed his petitions for writs of mandamus filed in that court for want of jurisdiction. He argued that the appellate court had jurisdiction and its dismissal was in error. He sought issuance of the writ of mandamus to require the court of appeals to consider his petitions on their merits. Upon review, the Supreme Court granted relief: "we perceive no reason why our exclusive Article 11.07 jurisdiction divests an appellate court of jurisdiction to decide the merits of a mandamus petition alleging that a district judge is not ruling on a motion when the relator has no Article 11.07 application pending." The Court conditionally granted mandamus and directed the Fifth Court of Appeals to rescind its decision dismissing relator's petitions for writ of mandamus for want of jurisdiction and to consider the merits of the issues raised. View "Padieu v. Court of Appeals of Texas, Fifth District" on Justia Law

A jury convicted appellant James Sullivan of four sexual assaults against three victims and sentenced him to eighteen years of imprisonment in each case. The trial judge ordered some of the sentences to run concurrently and some to run consecutively. One of the sentences that was stacked was not eligible for stacking. The issue before the Supreme Court in this case concerned the question of the proper remedy when one of a series of sentences is improperly stacked and whether it matters where in the series the improperly stacked sentence appears. The Court reformed the trial court's judgment to reflect that the improperly stacked sentence was not stacked and that the two sentences involving different victims were stacked. The Court also reformed the sequence of stacking to conform to the trial judge's oral pronouncement of sentence. View "Sullivan v. Texas" on Justia Law

In this case, the issue before the Supreme Court was whether an applicant must prove harm to obtain relief in a writ of habeas corpus premised on an illegal-sentence claim. Here, Jimmie Mark Parrott raised an illegal-sentence claim based on the State's improper use of a prior conviction for enhancement purposes. The Court denied relief because the habeas record established that applicant was previously convicted of other offenses that supported the punishment range within which he was admonished and sentenced; therefore, he failed to demonstrate harm. View "Parrott v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant George Blackshear was charged with possession of a controlled substance enhanced by two prior convictions for state-jail felonies. The guilt phase of the trial consisted of approximately three hours of testimony from five witnesses. After deliberating for approximately an hour and a half, the jury returned a guilty verdict. During the punishment phase, the State presented no new witnesses, and appellant stipulated to ten prior convictions. After an hour of deliberation, the jury was released for the day. The following morning, after two additional hours of deliberation, the jury informed the trial judge that they were unable to reach a verdict on punishment. The trial judge granted appellant's motion for a mistrial as to the punishment phase and informed the parties that the retrial on punishment would commence later that same day. Appellant's defense counsel stated on the record, "it's my understanding that I should ask for a continuance based on the fact that I do not have a copy of the transcript from the prior trial, and it would be ineffective assistance of counsel without having it, unless she can make it at lunchtime, a copy of the transcript to refer to the testimony." The court denied the "motion." After a new trial on punishment, appellant was sentenced to eight years in prison. On appeal, he claimed that the trial judge erred in denying his motion for a continuance. The Fourteenth Court of Appeals, finding that, because the State presented the same witnesses at retrial on the punishment as it presented at the guilt phase of the first trial, the defense could have used the transcript from the first trial to impeach those witnesses on retrial. As a result, the court concluded that the State had failed to rebut the presumption that a defendant needs a transcript of prior mistrials to mount an effective defense. Upon review of the trial court record, the Supreme Court concluded that because the alleged error was not properly preserved, the court of appeals erred in reversing the judgment of the trial court. View "Blackshear v. Texas" on Justia Law

Realtor Darrell Stanley filed a motion for leave to file a writ of mandamus pursuant to the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. In it, he contended that he filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus in the 264th District Court of Bell County, but the District Clerk refused to accept the writ application for filing because he added pages to it. The Clerk's response acknowledged that Relator's statement was correct. Although the District Clerk has the authority to return an application when an applicant is not using the correct form, the Supreme Court determined that the Relator appeared to have used the correct form and appeared to have substantially complied with the instructions. Mandamus relief was therefore conditionally granted, and the District Clerk of Bell County was instructed to accept Relator's application for filing with the additional pages. View "Stanley v. Bell Cty. District Clerk" on Justia Law

The State's petitioned the Supreme Court for discretionary review of this case to determine whether the common-law requirement that the State exercise due diligence in prosecuting a motion to revoke community supervision survived codification. The court of appeals ruled in favor of appellant Victor Martinez Garcia, by applying the common-law due-diligence requirement, which the State argued was superseded by statute. After review of the applicable statute as well as the appellate court record, the Supreme Court concluded that the common-law requirement has indeed been replaced by Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 42.12, section 24, referred to as the "due-diligence statute." Furthermore, the due-diligence statute applies to only two alleged community-supervision violations: "failure to report to a supervision officer as directed or to remain within a specified place." Because the court of appeals analyzed the case under common law instead of under the statute, it erred. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in revoking appellant's community supervision. The appellate court's decision was reversed and the trial court's judgment was reinstated. View "Garcia v. Texas" on Justia Law

In 2011, Applicant Michael Gaither pled guilty to one count each of burglary and engaging in organized criminal activity and was sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment for the burglary and ten years' imprisonment for engaging in organized criminal activity. The sentences were ordered to run concurrent with each other, but consecutive to applicant's sentence for a 2006 burglary. Under the terms of the plea agreement, applicant waived his appellate rights. In 2012, applicant filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus, alleging ineffective assistance of trial counsel. Specifically, applicant claimed that counsel was constitutionally deficient for giving him factually incorrect information about his sentences and for failing to object to the imposition of consecutive sentences. After reviewing the trial judge's findings, the Supreme Court agreed with the trial court that applicant presented no meritorious issues. Furthermore, the Court shared the trial court's concern that applicant had abused the writ process, so the Supreme Court remanded the case and instructed the judge to make additional findings of fact to help it determine if applicant's statements were indeed perjurious. The Court adopted these supplemental findings and agreed with the trial judge that, in using information he knew to be false to fill out his application, applicant has abused the writ process. The Court denied relief applicant's habeas application and cited him for abuse of the writ. View "Ex Parte Gaither" on Justia Law