Justia Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Opinion Summaries

Appellant Jon Ford, and the murder victim in this case, Dana Edwards, started dating in 2007. The couple did not live together, but both lived in Alamo Heights. By mid-summer 2008 they were drifting apart. Dana ended the relationship in September of 2008. Nevertheless, because appellant and Dana ran in the same Alamo Heights circles, they wanted to remain friends, and their paths continued to cross. Appellant and Dana had both attended a mutual friend's New Year's Eve party. Something a friend had said irritated appellant, and he left the party early. Dana left the party approximately an hour later. Needing to return something appellant left at the party, the friend and his fiancée drove to appellant's home, but appellant's car was not outside. On New Year's Day, Dana's parents expected her to visit, but they were never able to reach her. The parents drove to Dana's home and found her dead. Police found visible lacerations and indications of blunt force trauma to the head. The medical examiner later determined that Dana Clair had died from asphyxiation due to ligature strangulation. Appellant volunteered a statement to police, stating he went home and was asleep before midnight the night of the party. Police would obtain evidence that would suggest otherwise: video surveillance footage from the bank across the street from Dana's condo complex captured a car resembling appellant's on the condo grounds shortly after he left the party. No one could definitively say that the white SUV in the bank video footage belonged to appellant, or that appellant was the figure seen walking in the surveillance video. The San Antonio District Attorney’s Office filed an application for four days' worth of historical 4 cell-site-location information (CSLI) for appellant’s cell phone. Other evidence suggested that appellant was in Dana's condo the night she died: appellant’s Y chromosome profile was found on two cuttings from the bloody towel that had been draped over Dana's face when she was found. Ultimately, the jury found appellant guilty of murder and sentenced him to forty years' confinement. Among the issues raised and rejected on direct appeal was a Fourth Amendment argument that focused on admission of the historical cell-site-location information obtained from AT&T and used by the State to suggest appellant’s proximity to Dana Clair’s residence at the time of her murder. The Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that the State's warrantless acquisition of the historical cell-site location information recorded by appellant's cell-phone service provider did not violate his Fourth Amendment rights, and affirmed the court of appeals' rejection of appellant's claims. View "Ford v. Texas" on Justia Law

The court of appeals reversed appellant Joseph Green's conviction for the aggravated assault of a child based on its conclusion that the trial court's instructions to the jury were erroneous and harmful to appellant. The State appealed. Although the Court of Criminal Appeals agreed with the court of appeals' error analysis in that the trial court should not have defined certain terms that were undefined in the applicable statute, but disagreed that appellant was harmed by the erroneous instructions. The Court reversed the court of appeals' judgment and remanded this case for further proceedings. View "Green v. Texas" on Justia Law

The State charged appellant with one count of making a false statement to obtain property or credit, three counts of tampering with a governmental record, and one count of falsely holding oneself out as a lawyer. Two of the five counts, the making a false statement to obtain property or credit count, and one of the tampering with a governmental record counts, were state-jail felonies. These two counts were the offenses at issue in this appeal: if a defendant pleads true to an enhancement paragraph, can a court of appeals imply a trial court’s finding of true regarding that prior conviction used for enhancement when the trial judge, in his own words, refused to make such a finding? All counts were enhanced by the same two prior felony convictions. The first enhancement paragraph reflected appellant’s 1992 state conviction for credit-card abuse; the second reflected her 1990 federal conviction for mail fraud. Appellant entered an open plea. She judicially confessed to all five counts and pleaded true to both enhancement paragraphs. The trial court found the evidence sufficient to find appellant guilty, but it continued the hearing to the next day “to make a determination whether or not a finding of guilt should be made, or whether any finding of guilt should be deferred for a period of years.” The Court of Criminal Appeals held that the court of appeals could not imply the trial court's finding of true regarding the prior conviction used for enhancement when the trial judge refused to make such a finding. The Court therefore reversed the court of appeals and remanded this case for a new punishment hearing. View "Donaldson v. Texas" on Justia Law

In 2012, law-enforcement officers in Victoria were investigating appellee Michael Rendon on suspicion of drug activity. One day, several officers and a trained drug-detection dog went to the apartment complex where appellee lived. The issue this appeal presented for the Court of Criminal Appeals centered on whether it constituted a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment for law enforcement to bring the drug-detection dog directly to appellee's front door for the purpose of conducting a narcotics sniff. The Court concluded that the officers' use of the dog sniff resulted in a physical intrusion into the curtilage that exceeded the scope of any express or implied license, thereby constituting a warrantless, unconstitutional search. The Court affirmed the court of appeals and trial court's rulings granting appellee's motions to suppress. View "Texas v. Rendon" on Justia Law

Appellant Randall Mays was convicted for the capital murder of a law enforcement officer, for which he received a death sentence. He challenged his competency to be executed, but the trial court denied his motion because he failed to make a substantial showing of incompetence. On appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeals, Mays argued he did indeed make a showing of incompetence, and the Court agreed with him. Because the Court held as such, it set aside the trial court's denial of relief and remanded this case for competency proceedings. View "Mays v. Texas" on Justia Law

In 2012, appellants Joey Faust and Ramon Marroquin, while protesting at a gay pride parade, each disobeyed a police officer’s order to not cross a skirmish line, resulting in their arrest for the offense of Interference with Public Duties under Texas Penal Code Section 38.15(a)(1). After a consolidated bench trial, each was convicted and sentenced to two days’ confinement in the Tarrant County Jail and assessed a fine. Appellants appealed their convictions, asserting that Section 38.15(a)(1) had been unconstitutionally applied to them in violation of their First Amendment rights. The Court of Appeals agreed with appellants and reversed their convictions. The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed, concluding that Section 38.15(a)(1) was not unconstitutionally applied to appellants. The case was remanded so that the trial court judgments could be reinstated. View "Faust v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellee John Wachtendorf, Jr. was charged with the felony offense of Driving While Intoxicated. According to the district clerk’s file-mark, on January 16, 2014, Appellee filed a motion to suppress the results of a test for blood alcohol concentration following the extraction of blood at the time of his arrest. At the conclusion of a hearing on February 14, 2014, the trial court took the motion to suppress under advisement. On July 7, 2014, the hearing reconvened, and the trial court orally announced that it intended to grant Appellee’s motion. The docket sheet reflected that the trial court actually signed an order to that effect on the same day. The State contended, however, that the trial court did not sign the order in open court, and the Reporter’s Record did not clearly indicate that it did. Rather, the Reporter’s Record showed that, in response to the State’s request for written findings of fact and conclusions of law, the trial court directed Appellee to prepare proposed findings and conclusions and adjourned the hearing. Appellee did not immediately file the requested findings and conclusions. The issue for the Court of Criminal Appeals’ review this case was whether the time for filing a notice of appeal from an order adverse to the State should begin to run with the trial court’s signing of that order if the State received no timely notice that the order had been signed. The State argued that it was not notified that the trial court had signed an order granting Appellee’s motion to suppress until the period for filing its notice of appeal had expired. Having received no notice of this triggering event, the State filed an untimely notice of appeal, and the Court of Appeals dismissed its appeal for want of jurisdiction. Finding no reversible error in the Court of Appeals’ decision, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed. View "Texas v. Wachtendorf" on Justia Law

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