Justia Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Opinion Summaries

Appellant Jessie Brooks, Jr. was charged with aggravated assault. The indictment alleged the underlying assault as assault by threat, with the threat being verbal. The court of appeals held that the evidence did not show a verbal threat and that the nonverbal use of a deadly weapon varied from the allegations in the indictment. In its petition for discretionary review to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the State contended that the nonverbal use of a deadly weapon sufficiently conformed to the indictment. The Court concluded that a rational trier of fact could have found the statement “I need to hit” constituted a verbal threat. Consequently, the Court held the court of appeals erred in concluding the evidence did not shoe a verbal threat, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Brooks v. Texas" on Justia Law

Sara Cassandra Nelson (“Cassie”) witnessed her boyfriend, Kris Maneerut (“Jimmy”), being shot. Immediately afterward, Appellant Santhy Inthalangsy and associates escorted her from the crime scene. Later that day, she was killed. Appellant was charged with capital murder of Jimmy while in the course of kidnapping Cassie. The issue this case presented for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals’ review centered on whether evidence of Cassie’s death was admissible for a proper purpose and sufficiently relevant to the charge of capital murder. The Court held that indeed the evidence was relevant, tended to prove an element of the charged offense, and provided necessary context for the charged offense. Furthermore, the Court held that the probative value of the evidence was not substantially outweighed by its prejudicial effect. Therefore, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the evidence. View "Inthalangsy v. Texas" on Justia Law

In 2015, Appellant Brian Middleton pled guilty to three theft offenses pursuant to an agreement, and he was placed on deferred adjudication. He later committed two new thefts. He was charged with the two new offenses, and the State filed motions to adjudicate guilt in the three earlier cases. Appellant pled guilty to the two new offenses, but the trial court did not formally accept the pleas, instead ordering a presentence investigation report. On January 9, 2020, the trial court held a hearing on all five offenses. The issue Appellant's case presented on appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals asked that when a defendant is placed on deferred adjudication, and he is later charged with a new offense, and the punishment stage for both the deferred-adjudication offense and the new offense occur in the same proceeding, have the two cases been tried in the same criminal action for the purpose of determining whether the sentences can be stacked? The Court answered that question “yes” and affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals. View "Middleton v Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Christopher Rion crashed his vehicle into another vehicle, leading to injuries to the other vehicle’s driver and the eventual death of its passenger. For that death, Appellant was charged with manslaughter, but the jury found him “not guilty” of that offense and of the lesser included offense of criminally negligent homicide. The State proceeded to prosecute Appellant for the injuries to the driver on a charge of aggravated assault for intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causing bodily injury with a deadly weapon. Appellant challenged the second prosecution as barred by collateral estoppel. The court of appeals held that collateral estoppel applied and barred the subsequent prosecution for reckless aggravated assault because the jury in the manslaughter trial decided that Appellant was not reckless in causing the collision, which would be an essential element in the aggravated assault trial. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed: although both trials involved the issue of whether Appellant was reckless, manslaughter and aggravated assault causing bodily injury were “result of conduct” offenses. The results, death and bodily injury, were different, and the culpable mental state of recklessness attached to those results. "By its verdict of 'not guilty' in the first trial, the jury necessarily determined that Appellant was not reckless and therefore necessarily determined that Appellant was not aware of a risk of death as a result of his conduct. But the jury did not necessarily determine that Appellant lacked awareness of a risk of bodily injury as a result of his conduct. Collateral estoppel does not prohibit the subsequent prosecution for reckless aggravated assault causing bodily injury." View "Ex parte Christopher Rion" on Justia Law

After the trial court denied Appellant Nelson Diaz's motions to suppress evidence, a jury convicted him of burglary of a habitation and assessed his punishment at 32 years in prison. The court of appeals affirmed the trial court’s suppression rulings. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted review to decide the materiality of misrepresentations in a warrant affidavit under Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154 (1978). The Court found the misrepresentations here were not material, and one of the disputed statements was not proven to be false. Consequently, the Court affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals. View "Diaz v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellee Timothy West was charged with three counts of knowingly possessing or attempting to obtain the drug Tramadol by misrepresentation, fraud, forgery, deception, or subterfuge. The indictment alleged that the three counts were committed on or about January 21, 2015; April 2, 2015; and June 5, 2015. On June 5, 2018, three years to the day after the last alleged offense, the State refiled the indictment against Appellee, containing the same allegations word-for-word except that the alleged drug was changed from Tramadol to Oxycodone, and the State filed a motion to dismiss the original indictment which was granted on June 13. Appellee moved to quash the second indictment, and, in a June 21 hearing, the trial court granted the motion because the second indictment lacked tolling paragraphs. On June 26, more than three years after the alleged offenses, the State filed a third indictment containing the same allegations but also including tolling paragraphs as to each count. The trial court granted Appellee’s motion to quash the third indictment. The State appealed, and the court of appeals reversed the trial court’s ruling granting the motion to quash. The court of appeals concluded that the statute of limitations was tolled by the pendency of the first indictment which had alleged Tramadol. The issue this case presented for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' review was whether the statute of limitations was tolled by the pendency of an initial indictment charging a completely different drug than the subsequent indictment and charging not only possession, but also attempting to possess that drug by all of the possible statutory manners and means. The court of appeals concluded that, although the drugs alleged were different, both indictments employed the same language mirroring the statute, and therefore the statute of limitations was tolled. The Court of Criminal Appeals disagreed and reversed the court of appeals: "the 'gravamen of law-offending conduct' in each indictment was not necessarily the same. ... the subsequent indictment does not necessarily charge the same act, conduct, or transaction as the first. The statute of limitations was not tolled, and the trial court did not err when it granted Appellee’s motion to quash." View "Texas v. West" on Justia Law

Applicant Michael Hill was convicted of second-degree felony sexual assault of a child and indecency with a child by contact. Based on an enhancement, he was automatically sentenced to life imprisonment for the sexual-assault offense, and his punishment range for the indecency offense was enhanced to that of a first-degree felony. The jury sentenced him to life imprisonment. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals subsequently vacated Applicant’s enhancing conviction on involuntary-plea grounds. Applicant argued on appeal of his sentence that his enhanced life sentences were illegal and that he should be resentenced. The habeas court recommended that the Court of Criminal Appeals deny relief. The Court concluded Applicant was entitled to be resentenced for aggravated sexual assault but not indecency with a child. View "Ex parte Charles Michael Hill" on Justia Law

In early 2000, the victim and four of her friends traveled from Port Arthur to Houston to go to the rodeo. They checked into their hotel around 10:00 p.m. and decided to ride around the Richmond/Westheimer area. The group drove around until about 2:30 a.m., at which point they stopped at a 24-hour diner so some of them could go to the restroom before going back to the hotel. When the victim returned and started to get into her car, a man in a hooded sweatshirt approached her and asked for a cigarette. Before she could respond that she did not smoke, the man told her, “Let me have your car,” and she felt something pushing against her side. It was a gun. The man pushed her into the car and across the center console into the passenger seat. After a second man entered the car and sat down in the backseat, the first man drove the car away. While they were driving, the victim was forced into the backseat, and the man in the backseat sexually assaulted her. The victim testified that the two people who kidnapped her met up with two more people, and three of them sexually assaulted her at gun point while she was blindfolded. Eventually they stopped and drove away, leaving her in an empty field. The victim walked to a nearby business and asked someone to call the police. When police arrived, they took her to the hospital where a nurse performed an examination, collected samples, and took the victim’s clothes. The evidence was outsourced to Reliagene for genetic testing, and the DNA profile it developed was entered into CODIS, but police were not able to identify a suspect until 2017 when Appellant Wilber Molina voluntarily gave a cheek swab to the Houston Police Department. Appellant was subsequently indicted for aggravated sexual assault and convicted based on a DNA analyst’s testimony that the profile developed from the victim’s clothing by Reliagene was probably Appellant’s because the chances that a random person other than Appellant was the contributor were in the trillions and quadrillions. The issue this case presented for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' review was whether the admission of expert testimony about a DNA-comparison analysis violated the Confrontation Clause when the analysis was based on computer-generated data from the expert’s laboratory and data from another laboratory. The Court agreed with the court of appeals that it did not, and affirmed its judgment. View "Molina v. Texas" on Justia Law

In a single trial, Appellant Enrique Ramos was convicted both of continuous sexual abuse of a child, under Section 21.02(b) of the Texas Penal Code, and of prohibited sexual conduct under Section 25.02(a)(2). The latter conviction was for an act he committed against the same victim (his stepdaughter) as in the continuous sexual abuse of a child offense. It was also committed within the same timeframe during which he committed the acts comprising the continuous sexual abuse. The jury imposed his punishment at forty years and five years, respectively, and the trial court ordered his sentences to be served consecutively. On appeal, Appellant argued that punishment for both offenses violated the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The court of appeal agreed and vacated Appellant's conviction for prohibited sexual conduct. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed, finding that continuous sexual abuse of a child and prohibited sexual conduct were not the same offense for purposes of a multiple-punishments double-jeopardy analysis. The Court therefore reversed the judgment of the court of appeals to the extent that it vacated Appellant’s conviction and punishment for the offense of prohibited sexual conduct, and the case was remanded for that court to consider Appellant’s remaining point of error with respect to that offense. View "Ramos v. Texas" on Justia Law

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted review to decide whether a trial court has never-ending jurisdiction to grant “judicial clemency” after discharging a defendant from community supervision. In 2016, Appellee Lakesia Brent was convicted of Class B misdemeanor theft, and the trial court assessed her punishment at six months in jail but suspended the sentence and placed her on community supervision for a year. In 2017, the trial court entered an order terminating community supervision on a form that gave the trial court a number of options. The court chose, “The period having expired, defendant is discharged by operation of law.” It did not not choose, among other possibilities, “The Court finds defendant has satisfactorily fulfilled the conditions of supervision. Accordingly, this Court ORDERS the verdict set aside; the indictment, complaint, or information dismissed; and defendant discharged from supervision.” This latter option was often called “judicial clemency.” On November 1, 2019, Appellee moved the trial court to enter an order granting judicial clemency. The State objected for lack of jurisdiction because the motion was filed more than 30 days after Appellee was discharged from supervision. The trial court concluded that it had jurisdiction because the statute at issue expressed no time limit, policy considerations support the lack of a time limit, and Appellee was “rehabilitated and ready to re-take her place in law-abiding society.” The court of appeals saw “no textual basis for” requiring discharge and judicial clemency to occur together. The Court of Criminal Appeals concluded a trial court does not have never-ending jurisdiction to grant judicial clemency: under the plain terms of Article 42A.701(f), judicial clemency "hangs on a defendant’s performance on and discharge from community supervision. In the absence of any other source of jurisdiction, a trial court’s power to grant judicial clemency is limited to its 30-day plenary power." Judgment was reversed and the case remanded to the trial court to rescind its order setting aside Appellee's conviction, and to dismiss her motion for judicial clemency. View "Texas v. Brent" on Justia Law