Justia Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Opinion Summaries

The State charged Donnie Kachel with indecency with a child by exposure. After initially denying his presence at the scene, Kachel admitted to changing clothes in the street outside the victim’s home, but claimed that he saw only an adult woman and requested a lesser-included instruction on indecent exposure. The judge denied the request, and the court of appeals affirmed. Because there was some evidence that Kachel exposed himself only to an adult, the Court of Criminal Appeals reversed and remanded the case for a harm analysis. View "Kachel v. Texas" on Justia Law

Eric Heilman pled guilty to misdemeanor tampering with a governmental record after the relevant two-year statute of limitations had expired. In October 2008, Heilman was serving as an officer with the Beaumont Police Department. Along with another officer and a confidential informant, Heilman took part in a failed undercover narcotics sting targeting a suspected drug dealer. Although no transaction occurred, when the suspect began to leave, Heilman pursued and arrested him, seizing cash and a large amount of cocaine. But when Heilman drafted his probable-cause affidavit on October 13, 2008, he failed to mention either the undercover operation or his confidential informant. In return for Heilman’s plea, the State agreed not to pursue indictment for state-jail felony tampering with a governmental record. In an application for a writ of habeas corpus, Heilman challenged the trial court’s jurisdiction to accept his plea to the time-barred offense, arguing that his “pure law” limitations defense was a category-one absolute right under "Marin v. Texas." The habeas court granted relief, and the court of appeals affirmed. After review, the Court of Criminal Appeals reversed: "Heilman’s attempt to renege on his guilty plea after accepting its benefits exposes the unintended consequences of our prior holding in Phillips v. State. To ensure the sanctity and finality of plea agreements reached in good faith and at arm’s length, we will no longer unquestioningly distinguish between factual and pure-law limitations defenses. Instead, in circumstances lacking any legislative ex post facto violation - and especially when that occurs in the context of a good-faith, arm’s length plea agreement - both are Marin category three forfeitable rights. [. . . ] Therefore, because there was no ex post facto violation, the trial court properly exercised its jurisdiction to accept Heilman’s plea and Heilman had every right to forfeit (or in this case waive) his limitations defense as part of that plea. We reverse the holdings of the habeas court and the court of View "Texas v. Heilman" on Justia Law

Appellant was convicted of robbing two employees of a restaurant before opening for business that day. Appellant testified at the guilt phase. A jury convicted appellant of two counts of aggravated robbery. The jury then assessed punishment at seventy-five years' incarceration for each count. On direct appeal, appellant claimed that the trial court abused its discretion in allowing the state to cross-examine him about felony convictions that were more than ten years old and about a misdemeanor conviction that was not a crime of moral turpitude. The court of appeals noted that "[w]hether to admit remote convictions lies within the trial court's discretion and depends on the facts and circumstances of each case" (citing "Jackson v. Texas," 50 S.W.3d 579 (2001)). The court declined appellant's invitation to revisit Jackson regarding the "tacking" of felony convictions that were out-of-date under Rule 609. Using the standard found in Rule 609(a) instead of the more restrictive Rule 609(b), the court of appeals also noted that, under the tacking doctrine, a trial court must determine whether the probative value of the convictions outweighs, rather than "substantially" outweighs, their prejudicial effect and accordingly overruled appellant's complaint about the trial court's application of the balancing test. The court of appeals also concluded that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in its determination that the prior convictions' probative value outweighed their prejudicial effect. After its review, the Court of Criminal Appeals reversed and remanded this case back to the court of appeals for reconsideration under the correct Rule 609 standard. View "Meadows v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant was charged with felony murder with injury to a child as the underlying offense. The Court of Criminal Appeals determined that the evidence was insufficient to support the felony murder conviction, but that the jury necessarily found her guilty of the lesser-included offense of injury to a child. The indictment stated that she "did then and there intentionally, knowingly, recklessly and with criminal negligence commit and attempt to commit a felony, namely injury to a child." The application paragraph of the jury charge included each of these mental states in the disjunctive, and the court defined each one. When Appellant was convicted, the jury entered a general verdict; there was no way to know whether the jury found that Appellant acted intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or with criminal negligence in the starvation of her child. Because the injury to a child offense had varying penalties based on the culpable mental state of the defendant, and without a determination on mental state, the jury had no guidance on the applicable punishment range. The Court of Criminal Appeals granted Appellant's motion for rehearing in order to clarify its order that the trial court reform Appellant's conviction from felony murder to injury of a child and conduct a new punishment hearing based on the reformed conviction. Appellant argued that remanding the case for an entirely new trial, rather than reforming the conviction and conducting a new punishment hearing, was the proper disposition. The Court agreed, and remanded for a new trial. View "Rodriguez v. Texas" on Justia Law

In August 2012, a jury convicted Appellant Tyrone Cade of capital murder for stabbing his girlfriend and her teenaged daughter to death during the same criminal transaction or pursuant to the same scheme or course of conduct. Pursuant to the jury's answers to the special issues set forth in Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 37.071, sections 2(b) and 2(e)(1), the trial judge sentenced Appellant to death. Appellant raised forty-four points of error in this automatic and direct appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeals. After reviewing Appellant's claims, the Court found all to be without merit. Consequently, the Court affirmed the trial court's judgment and sentence. View "Cade v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Tawona Riles pled guilty to possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver. Adjudication was deferred, and appellant was granted community supervision. After a year and a half, her community supervision was revoked, and she was sentenced to seven years in prison and ordered to pay all of the court costs, including her court appointed attorney fees. Appellant then appealed, arguing that the trial court erred in ordering her to pay the attorney fees because there was no evidence of her ability to pay. The court of appeals held that this claim was forfeited because she did not raise it in an appeal from the original Order of Deferred Adjudication. The Court of Criminal Appeals agreed with the court of appeals, and affirmed its judgment. View "Riles v. Texas" on Justia Law

In September 2010, appellant Rene Villarreal was arrested and charged with the murder of Christopher Martinez. The issue presented for the Court of Criminal Appeals' review centered on whether a defendant has suffered egregious harm from the erroneous omission of a jury instruction that would have required the jury to apply a presumption of reasonableness as to his belief that the use of deadly force was immediately necessary to protect himself. The State raised this question in its petition for discretionary review, in which it challenged the court of appeals’s reversal of appellant's murder conviction based on the conclusion that he was egregiously harmed by the trial court’s omission of such an instruction. The Court of Criminal Appeals agreed with the State’s contention that the court of appeals erred by concluding that appellant was egregiously harmed based on the existence of theoretical harm and based on an incomplete review of the record and the arguments of counsel. The judgment of the court of appeals was reversed and the matter remanded for further proceedings. View "Villarreal v. Texas" on Justia Law

The trial court revoked appellant’s deferred-adjudication probation, adjudicated him guilty of aggravated robbery, and sentenced him to eight years’ imprisonment. Appellant’s sentence was imposed in open court on March 7, 2013. On March 20, appellant filed a "Motion for Commutation of Sentence," in which he requested a "time cut" and a new sentence of zero years. On March 25, appellant appealed. On May 17, the trial court entered an order granting a new trial on punishment. On May 20, the State filed a motion to rescind that order and requested that the trial court rule on the State’s motion no later than May 21. The trial court signed an order rescinding its order granting a motion for new trial on punishment on May 22, seventy-six days after the imposition of sentence. In a prior decision, the Court of Criminal Appeals suggested that there was a time limit on the trial court’s power to rescind the granting of a new trial. The Court concluded here that there was no specific time limit on the trial court’s power to do so. Consequently, the Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals. View "Kirk v. Texas" on Justia Law

In the pre-dawn hours of a September day in 2009, the nine-year-old complainant (JG) was walking alone down a long, dark, desolate driveway by herself from her condominium complex to her school bus stop. Appellant approached her from behind, grabbed her around the waist with one arm, covered her mouth with his other hand, and threatened to cut her with a knife if she screamed. Appellant then put JG on the floorboard of his truck and drove her to his apartment. While she was in Appellant’s car, JG reached into her backpack claiming to look for a snack, but she grabbed her mobile phone to seek help. Because it was still dark outside, Appellant saw the light from JG’s phone when she activated it, and he took it from her. He then pried the battery out with a knife. Once at Appellant’s apartment, JG was put into a closet with her hands bound. After eight hours Appellant decided to release JG. He put her back on the floorboard of his truck and drove her to an apartment complex near where she lived. But when she told him that she did not know how to get home from where they were, Appellant took her back to the site of the kidnapping and released her there. JG returned home to an empty house: her mother was not there because she was at the police station. JG was unable to call anyone for help because Appellant still had her mobile phone, and JG and her mother did not have a home phone. JG walked to a neighbor’s house and used their telephone to call her mother. A little while later, her mother and police arrived. The punishment level for aggravated kidnapping is reduced from a first-degree felony to a second-degree felony if the kidnapper "voluntarily releases the victim in a safe place." The court of appeals concluded that the evidence was legally and factually sufficient to support the jury’s rejection of Appellant’s mitigating defense of release in a safe place. The Court of Criminal Appeals granted review to examine the court of appeals' holding, and because the Court agreed with the judgment of the court of appeals, it affirmed. View "Butcher v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Melissa Mercer pled guilty to debit-card abuse and was placed on community supervision for five years. On numerous occasions, the trial court amended Appellant’s conditions of community supervision sua sponte and without a hearing. Appellant signed each order amending the conditions of her community supervision. Later, the trial court held a hearing with Appellant, defense counsel, and the prosecutor present, revoked Appellant’s community supervision, and sentenced her to two years’ confinement. The judge also ordered her to pay the costs she had failed to pay as conditions of her community supervision, including payment of her outstanding fine, court costs, and reimbursement for costs of her confinement in county jail while she was on community supervision. At the revocation hearing, Appellant stipulated to evidence proffered by the State and pled true to all alleged violations of her conditions of community supervision, including failing to pay her fine, court costs, and reimbursement as ordered as conditions of her community supervision. The issue this case presented for the Court of Criminal Appeals' review was whether a defendant was required to reimburse the county for the cost of her incarceration in county jail as a condition of her community supervision. However, because the Court concluded the court of appeals incorrectly analyzed the relevant issue in this case, it vacated the court of appeals and remanded this case for reconsideration. View "Mercer v. Texas" on Justia Law