Justia Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Opinion Summaries

Twenty-six years ago, the United States Supreme Court held that the prosecution of Gregory Johnson under the Texas flag-desecration statute for burning an American flag violated the First Amendment. Texas has since revised and renamed the statute. After review of the revised statute, the Court of Criminal Appeals held the statute was unconstitutionally overbroad in violation of the First Amendment. View "Texas v. Johnson" on Justia Law

Applicant Derrick Cooke was placed on deferred adjudication for family-violence assault, and he was later adjudicated. He argued on appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeals that a prior New Mexico conviction was improperly used for enhancement of his sentence. His sentence has since discharged. He claimed, though, that the Court could still review his complaint because he was suffering a collateral consequence of his conviction, namely, the use of the Tarrant County offense to enhance a subsequent family-violence assault in Hood County. The Court disagreed, and dismissed this application. View "Ex parte Derrick Cooke" on Justia Law

Appellant Robert Cornwell was convicted of impersonating an assistant district attorney and sentenced to two years’ confinement in the penitentiary. The Ninth Court of Appeals affirmed his conviction, holding that the evidence was sufficient to show that Appellant impersonated a public servant with the intent to induce another to rely on his pretended official acts. Applicant conceded that he impersonated a public servant, but argued that the evidence failed to establish that he did so with the requisite specific intent. Finding the evidence sufficient to support his conviction, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed. View "Cornwell 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 assessed a punishment of 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 judgment of the trial court and remanded the case with instructions for the State to re-offer the ten-year plea bargain. The State argued on appeal of this matter that the court of appeals’ conclusion that there was a reasonable probability that the original trial judge would have accepted the ten-year plea agreement was based on a misreading of "Missouri v. Frye," (132 S.Ct. 1399 (2012)) and the assumption that the trial judge was biased. The Court of Criminal Appeals concluded 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. Therefore, the Court reversed the decision of the court of appeals. "The slate was wiped clean" upon the recusal of the original trial judge and the court was entitled to start anew. 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

Appellants filed mechanic’s lien affidavits with the Denton County Clerk’s Office, which alleged that they had performed “labor and/or materials” worth a certain amount of money on the home of Katheryn Payne. As a result of these filings, the State charged appellants with securing the execution of documents by deception by causing the county clerk, Cynthia Mitchell, to sign or execute the mechanic’s lien affidavits. Appellants were convicted, fined, and placed on community supervision. The court of appeals reversed appellants’ convictions and rendered judgments of acquittal. The court held that the evidence was legally insufficient to support the convictions because “the conduct of the court clerk filing and recording” the mechanic’s lien affidavit in each case “was not the signing or executing of a document as contemplated by subsection 32.46(a)(1).” The issue this case presented for the Court of Criminal Appeal's review centered on whether a person commits the crime of securing the execution of documents by deception when he files a false mechanic’s lien affidavit with the county clerk. The Court concluded that such a person does not commit that crime because he does not cause “another” to “execute” a document affecting property or pecuniary interests. "[I]t is the filing person, not the clerk, who brings the mechanic’s lien affidavit into its final, legally enforceable form. Because the county clerk does not execute the mechanic’s lien affidavit when the affidavit is filed, the appellants did not cause 'another' to 'execute' the documents at issue in the present case." Consequently, the Court agreed with the court of appeals that the evidence was legally insufficient to support the conviction, and affirmed its judgment. View "Liverman v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant was indicted for capital murder and conspiracy to commit capital murder. After a few days of trial testimony, the parties reached an agreement: The State waived the capital-murder charge in exchange for appellant pleading guilty to the conspiracy charge for a fifty-year prison sentence. More than two months after the original judgment was entered, the trial judge signed a judgment nunc pro tunc, changing the “Findings on Deadly Weapon” entry from “N/A” to “Yes, a Firearm.” The judgment nunc pro tunc also added a special finding that appellant “used or exhibited a deadly weapon or was a party to the offense and knew that a deadly weapon would be used or exhibited.” The effect of this finding was that appellant would not be eligible for parole until she served at least twenty-five years of her sentence. Appellant argued on appeal that the trial judge erred in entering the judgment nunc pro tunc because: (1) the judgment corrected a judicial error rather than a clerical one; (2) there was no record support to conclude that appellant personally used or exhibited a deadly weapon; and (3) appellant’s right to due process was violated because, “almost three months later,” the trial judge “add[ed] a deadly-weapon finding without notice to appellant.” In the body of the brief on the third claim, appellant argued both that the “State failed to give appellant notice in the indictment that it intended to seek a deadly-weapon finding” and that “appellant was not given notice that the trial court changed the original judgment to add an affirmative deadly-weapon finding.” The court of appeals concluded that the judgment nunc pro tunc was correctly entered. Upon review, the Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that it was "beyond dispute that [appellant] had such a right and that this right was violated." Remand was necessary because the State’s entitlement to a nunc pro tunc judgment depended on at least one issue of fact (whether, at the time of trial, the trial judge actually made a deadly-weapon finding), and this issue of fact had not been conclusively resolved in the State’s favor. View "Guthrie-Nail v. Texas" on Justia Law

In 1980, appellant was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death for fatally shooting a seventy-year-old grocery clerk while committing or attempting to commit robbery. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the 1980 conviction and sentence. Following the grant of federal habeas corpus relief, the trial court held a new punishment hearing in February 2001. Appellant again received a death sentence. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the trial court’s judgment on direct appeal. In this initial writ application challenging his 2001 punishment retrial and death sentence, applicant raised forty-eight claims for relief. In January 2014, the habeas judge held a two-day evidentiary hearing on applicant’s first claim for relief, an allegation that he was intellectually disabled and therefore exempt from execution under the Supreme Court’s holding in "Atkins v. Virginia," (536 U.S. 304 (2002)). The habeas court signed applicant’s proposed Addendum Findings, which applied the definition of intellectual disability presently used by the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD), and concluded that applicant was intellectually disabled under that definition. The Findings recommended that the Court of Criminal Appeals grant relief on appellant's Atkins claim. The Addendum Findings also concluded that applicant had established by a preponderance of the evidence that he was intellectually disabled under the diagnostic criteria stated in the fourth and fifth editions of the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA’s) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), i.e., the DSM-IV and DSM-V. The Court of Criminal Appeals set the case to address applicant’s Atkins allegation, and again denied relief on all of applicant’s claims: "Because our Legislature has not enacted legislation to implement Atkins’s mandate, we continue to follow the AAMR’s 1992 definition of intellectual disability that we adopted in 'Briseno' for Atkins claims presented in Texas death-penalty cases. [. . .] The habeas judge therefore erred by disregarding our case law and employing the definition of intellectual disability presently used by the AAIDD, a definition which notably omits the requirement that an individual’s adaptive behavior deficits, if any, must be 'related to' significantly sub-average general intellectual functioning." The Court held that applicant did not establish by a preponderance of the evidence that he was intellectually disabled under Atkins and Briseno. Accordingly, applicant was not exempt from the death penalty. View "Ex parte Bobby Moore" on Justia Law

The traffic stop at issue occurred mid-afternoon, while State Trooper Thomas Norsworthy was patrolling an eastbound section of Interstate 10. The relevant events were captured on video from the dashboard camera in the trooper's vehicle. This section of Interstate 10 has three lanes. Trooper Norsworthy was driving in the left lane, going faster than the other cars on the road. It From the video, it appeared that appellant’s car was at the front of a short line of vehicles traveling in the left lane. Appellant passed a “Left Lane for Passing Only” sign. About four or five seconds later, while Trooper Norsworthy was in the right lane, he passed the sign. Appellant’s vehicle continued to travel in the left lane. Another four or five seconds later, Trooper Norsworthy moved out of the right lane, across the middle lane, and into the left lane. The Trooper then followed behind appellant’s vehicle in the left lane for ten to twelve seconds. During this interval, the middle lane was clear of traffic, and appellant was not passing any other vehicles. Appellant turned on her left turn signal, then turned it off and turned on her right turn signal, and then moved into the middle lane. Trooper Norsworthy turned on his overhead lights, and the two vehicles pulled to the side of the road. During the course of the stop, Trooper Norsworthy smelled marijuana, searched appellant’s vehicle, and found marijuana in the trunk. As a result of this incident, appellant was charged with possession of marijuana. She filed a motion to suppress, which was denied. Pursuant to an agreement, she pled guilty and was placed on deferred adjudication. On appeal, appellant claimed that Trooper Norsworthy lacked reasonable suspicion to conduct a traffic stop. The court of appeals agreed. After review, the Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that the facts surrounding this conduct did not establish beyond question that appellant needed to remain in the left lane for safety purposes, and that the trooper had reasonable suspicion to conduct a traffic stop. Consequently, the Court reversed the court of appeals. View "Jaganathan v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant was charged with aggravated robbery. The only dispute at trial was the identity of the assailant. To prove that the eyewitness misidentified Appellant, the defense called a forensic psychologist, Dr. Steven Rubenzer, to testify about the weapon-focus effect and its possible impact in this case. The trial court, however, excluded that testimony as irrelevant. Appellant was subsequently convicted. The issue this case presented for the Court of Criminal Appeals' review centered on whether the court of appeals erred when it affirmed the judgment of the trial court holding that Appellant failed to establish the reliability of proffered expert testimony. The testimony at issue was about the weapon-focus effect, which contended that the accuracy of an eyewitness identification could be detrimentally impacted when, during the commission of an offense, a weapon is used by the assailant and seen by the complainant. Finding no reversible error in the appellate court's judgment. View "Blasdell v. Texas" on Justia Law

Osmin Peraza was indicted in Harris County under separate case numbers for two instances of aggravated sexual assault of a child under the age of fourteen. After Peraza pled guilty to the two offenses, the trial court assessed punishment in the amount of twenty-five years for each offense, to run concurrently. Each judgment contained a court cost assessment of $250 for a “DNA RECORD FEE.” This DNA record fee was required to be assessed as a cost of court pursuant to Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, Article 102.020. On appeal, Peraza challenged the assessment of this DNA record fee, claiming it was an unconstitutional tax that violated the separation of powers clause of the Texas Constitution. The Court of Criminal Appeals granted the State’s Petition For Discretionary Review to address whether the First Court of Appeals correctly determined that the “DNA RECORD FEE” was an unconstitutional tax that violating the separation of powers clause under the Texas Constitution. After review, the Court held that Article 102.020 was not facially unconstitutional. The Court reversed the decision of the First Court of Appeals which held to the contrary. View "Peraza v. Texas" on Justia Law