Justia Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Opinion Summaries

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

The issue this case presented for the Court of Criminal Appeals' review centered on whether a defendant suffers egregious harm from erroneous jury instructions permitting a non-unanimous verdict when the jury faced with two diametrical positions reaches multiple verdicts signifying, in the aggregate, its belief in the credibility of the State’s evidence and its disbelief in the defendant’s evidence. The State’s argued that the court of appeals erred by determining that erroneous jury instructions permitting non-unanimous jury verdicts caused egregious harm to appellant Charles Arrington. The court of appeals' judgment reversed appellant's six convictions, including five convictions for aggravated sexual assault of a child and one conviction for indecency with a child by contact. The Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that, by improperly failing to consider all of the evidence that was admitted at trial and by finding dispositive the jury’s inability to reach a verdict on a single count without considering other rational reasons for the lack of a verdict on that single count, the court of appeals erroneously determined that the faulty instructions egregiously harmed appellant. The Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals and remanded this case for consideration of appellant’s other issues on appeal. View "Arrington v. Texas" on Justia Law

A jury convicted appellant of felony driving while intoxicated (DWI), found that appellant did “use or exhibit a deadly weapon, to wit: a motor vehicle during the commission of the offense or during immediate flight therefrom,” and assessed punishment at forty years’ imprisonment. On direct appeal, appellant claimed that the evidence was legally and factually insufficient to support the deadly-weapon finding. The court of appeals sustained that claim, struck the portion of the trial court’s judgment that found use or exhibition of a deadly weapon, and affirmed the judgment as modified. Both the state and Brister appealed. On this record, the Court of Criminal Appeals concluded the court of appeals correctly determined that there was no reasonable inference that appellant used his motor vehicle as a deadly weapon. The Court overruled the state’s grounds for review. View "Brister v. Texas" on Justia Law

The Court of Criminal Appeals granted the State’s petition for discretionary review in this case to address several questions related to the appellate review of a juvenile court’s waiver of its otherwise exclusive jurisdiction over a person alleged to have committed a murder at the age of sixteen. In 2008, the State filed a petition alleging that the appellant engaged in delinquent conduct by committing an intentional or knowing murder. On the same date, the State also filed a motion for the juvenile court to waive its exclusive jurisdiction and transfer the appellant to criminal district court for prosecution as an adult, alleging as grounds for the transfer that, because of the seriousness of the offense alleged, ensuring the welfare of the community required waiver of juvenile jurisdiction. The juvenile court granted the State’s request for a hearing on the motion and, pursuant to Section 54.02(d) of the Juvenile Justice Code in the Texas Family Code, ordered that the Chief Juvenile Probation Officer obtain a complete diagnostic study, social evaluation, and full investigation of the appellant’s background and the circumstances of the alleged offenses. The juvenile court also ordered the Mental Health and Mental Retardation Authority of Harris County to conduct an examination and file its report. The juvenile court ultimately waived jurisdiction thereby transferring the case to the jurisdiction of the district court where appellant was tried as an adult for first-degree felony murder. The jury convicted, and sentenced appellant to thirty years' confinement. On appeal, appellant argued that the juvenile court’s stated “reasons for waiver” were supported by insufficient evidence and that the juvenile court therefore abused its discretion by waiving jurisdiction over the appellant. In a published opinion, the court of appeals agreed with appellant that the evidence supported neither the juvenile court’s “sophistication-and-maturity” finding nor its “adequate-protection-of-the-public-and-likelihood-of-rehabilitation” finding. The court of appeals vacated the district court’s judgment of conviction, dismissed the criminal proceedings, and declared the case to be still “pending in the juvenile court. The State appealed. The Court of Criminal Appeals concluded after its review that court of appeals did not err to undertake a factual-sufficiency review of the evidence underlying the juvenile court’s waiver of jurisdiction over the appellant. But because the juvenile court made no case-specific findings of fact with respect to the seriousness of the offense, the Court agreed with the court of appeals that the evidence failed to support this as a valid reason for waiving juvenile-court jurisdiction and affirmed the court of appeals. View "Moon v. Texas" on Justia Law