Justia Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Opinion Summaries

In the early morning hours of August 20, 2016, police and medics responded to multiple emergency calls regarding a drug overdose at the Texas A&M Sigma Nu fraternity house. Callers said that they saw drugs and that fraternity members did not want police to get involved. Upon arrival, law enforcement discovered a fraternity brother deceased from an apparent overdose, so they began treating the fraternity house as a murder scene. Police made three warrantless protective sweeps of the house to make sure that the members were out of their rooms and in common areas, as well as to determine if anyone else had overdosed or needed medical attention. During each sweep, police saw narcotics and paraphernalia in plain view inside certain rooms and common areas. Officers informed Investigator Garrett about their findings, and during the third warrantless protective sweep, he saw contraband in Appellant Samuel Patterson's room. Instead of seizing the illegal contraband, Investigator Garrett drafted a search warrant. The issue this case presented for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was whether the particularity requirement of the Fourth Amendment was satisfied if a warrant described the place to be searched as a fraternity house as a whole without specifying a suspect’s actual room in the house, but an incorporated affidavit provided both descriptions. The Court held the particularity requirement was satisfied if an affidavit that was incorporated into the warrant included, somewhere, a specific description of the place that was searched. View "Patterson v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Danny Alcoser was convicted of family violence assault with a prior conviction, endangering a child, and interference with an emergency request for assistance. He appealed, arguing that he was entitled to a new trial on all counts because he was egregiously harmed by a variety of jury charge errors that impacted all three offenses. In finding egregious harm, the court of appeals considered the “cumulative effect” of all the errors. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted review to decide whether the court of appeals erred when it did so, and whether it misapplied the egregious-harm standard. The Court reversed the court of appeals’ judgment as to the assault count and remanded the case for it to address Appellant’s remaining points of error. View "Alcoser v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant David Spillman, Jr. was convicted by jury of two counts of assault of a public servant and one count of possession of methamphetamine. The court of appeals affirmed his convictions. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted Appellant’s petition for discretionary review to determine whether the evidence was sufficient to support his assault of a public servant convictions. The Court found the evidence could enable a rational jury to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Appellant committed assault of a public servant. Accordingly, the convictions were affirmed. View "Spillman v. Texas" on Justia Law

During the guilt phase of Appellant Adrian Valadez’s jury trial for third-degree possession of marihuana, the trial court admitted over various defense objections evidence of extraneous drug incidents. The jury found Appellant guilty as charged and sentenced him to five years in prison and a fine of $8,500. The court of appeals affirmed, holding that the trial court did not err in admitting the evidence of the extraneous incidents. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted review to consider whether the extraneous drug evidence was admissible under the doctrine of chances or under Texas Rules of Evidence 404(b) and 403. The Court held the evidence was inadmissible under the doctrine of chances because the extraneous incidents and the charged offense were not highly unusual or exactly the same. "And even if Rule 404(b) might have justified the admission of extraneous drug incidents, Rule 403 required their exclusion because they were unsupported by competent evidence; and even if they had been otherwise admissible, some were misleading and/or prejudicial in other ways. Consequently, any probative value was substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice and misleading the jury under the peculiar facts of this case." Judgment was reversed and the case remanded to the court of appeals for a harm analysis. View "Valadez v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Ruben Gutierrez planned and, with two accomplices, committed the robbery and murder of eighty-five-year-old Escolastica Harrison, the owner of a mobile-home park in Brownsville. After his conviction was affirmed on direct appeal, he filed a motion for DNA testing, seeking to have various items of biological evidence tested. Appellant was attempting to show that Harrison’s nephew, Avel Cuellar, was the true perpetrator of the offense. In this, Appellant's direct appeal of his third motion for post-conviction DNA testing, Appellant’s sought to test the same biological materials he sought to have tested in his first two motions, both of which the convicting court denied, and both of which denials the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals subsequently affirmed. In response to Appellant’s third motion for DNA-testing, the State filed a motion styled a “Plea to the Jurisdiction,” in which it asked the convicting court to dismiss Appellant’s third DNA motion on the ground that the convicting court lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate it. Because the federal district court declared Article 64.03 to be unconstitutional, the State contended, there was no longer any legitimate statutory authority for DNA testing at all, and so there was no legal basis for Appellant to claim entitlement to such testing, and no “special” jurisdiction in the convicting court to permit it. The convicting court granted the State’s motion and dismissed Appellant’s motion for DNA testing “for want of jurisdiction.” The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals determined "resolution of this case turns first and foremost on the principle that state courts are not bound by decisions of the lower federal courts." The trial court in this case was not divested of its jurisdiction to entertain and resolve Appellant’s third motion for post-conviction DNA testing by the federal district court’s opinion. For that reason, the Court of Criminal Appeals held the trial court erred to dismiss Appellant’s motion “for want of jurisdiction.” View "Gutierrez v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Kevin Ratliff, the Llano chief of police, was convicted by a jury of two counts of official oppression (a third-degree felony), and one count of the misdemeanor offense of tampering with a governmental record. The issue is case presented for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' review centered on whether the evidence was sufficient to support those convictions. As to the official oppression counts, the Court concluded the evidence was sufficient: a rational jury could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that Appellant subjected Cory Nutt to an arrest that he knew was unlawful and intentionally subjected Cory Nutt to mistreatment, knowing that his actions were unlawful, by criminally trespassing in Nutt’s home. The Court therefore affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals as to those two counts. As to tampering with a governmental record, the Court concluded the evidence was insufficient, and the court of appeals erred in relying on omissions to support its holding because including the specific facts of the arrest in an offense report was not required by any statute or rule, and any facts not stated in the offense report were provided through video evidence. As to this count, the Court rendered a judgment of acquittal. View "Ratliff v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Michael Gonzales appealed a trial court order denying his motion for post-conviction DNA testing filed pursuant to Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 64.1 Specifically, the trial court determined that Appellant failed to: (1) show that identity was or was an issue; (2) establish by a preponderance of the evidence that he would not have been convicted if exculpatory results had been obtained through DNA testing; and (3) establish by a preponderance that his request for DNA testing was not made to unreasonably delay the execution of sentence or administration of justice. After reviewing the record, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found Appellant was not entitled to relief. Consequently, it affirmed the trial court’s order denying testing. View "Gonzales v. Texas" on Justia Law

The issue this case presented for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim stemming from allegedly bad advice about probation eligibility. Specifically, the issue was the measure of prejudice when an attorney mistakenly tells his client that he was eligible for probation from the trial court: does the defendant have to show a reasonable likelihood of a different outcome if he had elected the jury for punishment instead of the court? Or does the measure of prejudice focus on the defendant’s decision making? The Court concluded the correct measure should focus on the impact of the bad advice on the defendant’s decision making and does not require a showing of a different outcome. Here, the Court of Criminal Appeals was asked to decide whether the court of appeals required Appellant to show a reasonable likelihood of a more favorable outcome from the jury than he got from the trial court. The Court held that even if the court of appeals used the wrong standard, it reached the right result because the record was silent about the effect of the attorney’s advice on Appellant’s decision making. Consequently, the court of appeals' judgment was affirmed. View "Swinney v. Texas" on Justia Law

In May 2017, a jury convicted Applicant Joseph Colone of capital murder, murder of more than one person during the same criminal transaction. From this, he was sentenced to death. As was noted in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' opinion on direct appeal, the State’s case against Applicant included evidence that police investigators found a “dark knit glove” and a “blue towel” at the crime scene. DNA analysis by the DPS Crime Laboratory showed that Applicant “could not be excluded as a contributor to DNA found on the glove and blue towel.” In June 2019, Applicant filed his initial postconviction application for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing, among other things, that the State suppressed material evidence showing that the DPS Crime Laboratory had mishandled the glove and towel prior to their being subjected to DNA testing. He also claimed that, whether knowingly or unknowingly, one of the DPS analysts who testified at trial gave the jury a false impression when he suggested that there was nothing “awry” with the manner in which DPS handled the glove and towel. In March 2021, the parties jointly submitted agreed findings of fact and conclusions of law that, if adopted, would counsel in favor of relief on Applicant’s Brady and Chabot claims. In July 2021, the habeas court adopted the parties’ agreed findings of fact and conclusions of law, and forwarded those findings and conclusions to the Court of Criminal Appeals, recommending that Applicant be granted relief on the basis of his Brady and Chabot claims. Deferring to the habeas court's findings, the Court of Criminal Appeals granted relief. View "Ex parte Joseph Colone" on Justia Law

Appellant Daniel Garcia was convicted by jury of aggravated sexual assault. He was sentenced to twelve years’ imprisonment and ordered him to pay $1,000 in restitution to the Office of the Attorney General. The court of appeals modified the trial court’s judgment to delete the restitution requirement and affirmed Appellant’s conviction as modified. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted review to consider, among other things, whether an objection was required to preserve Appellant’s challenge to the restitution order. The Court concluded that an objection was required, none was made, and Appellant forfeited his challenge to the restitution order, so it did not reach the remaining grounds for review. View "Garcia v. Texas" on Justia Law