Justia Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Opinion Summaries

Appellant Henry Taylor, Jr. was convicted of theft following a contract dispute he had over the installation of some commercial signs. Jeff Reich owned a construction company in Longview, and he also owned certain commercial properties in Longview and Kilgore. For several years, Reich had done business with the appellant and appellant’s father, who ran several commercial sign businesses, and Reich had been satisfied with their work. The father stepped down from the business and turned over operations to appellant. Through Reich’s office manager, Vicki Yocum, appellant negotiated a deal by which he agreed to order four LED signs and install them at two of Reich’s commercial properties. When a significant time had passed and Yocum continued to hear nothing from appellant, she began to “hound” him, mostly via text messages, but appellant remained evasive. Frustrated that the LED signs had still not been installed at his properties, Reich contacted the police. Appellant discovered that a warrant had been issued for his arrest, and he turned himself in. Appellant argued that he was convicted of theft solely because his apparent “ineptitude” prevented him from adequately fulfilling his contractual obligations. In a published split decision, the Court of Appeals affirmed appellant’s conviction for theft in an amount between $1,500 and $20,000, a state-jail felony. The majority found that the evidence would support a rational inference that, by the time the appellant took a second installment payment on the contract in the amount of $10,000, on a false premise, he had formulated the requisite intent to deprive his customer of that amount. The dissent argued that the evidence, while certainly sufficient to support the inference that the money was taken under false pretenses, was insufficient to show that the appellant ever intended to renege on the contract. In light of this disagreement among the appellate justices, the Court of Criminal Appeals granted the appellant’s petition for discretionary review and, finding no error with the outcome, affirmed the court of appeals’ judgment. View "Taylor v. Texas" on Justia Law

A jury convicted Appellant of capital murder and sentenced her to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Her conviction was affirmed by the Court of Appeals. The Court of Criminal Appeals granted review to examine the court of appeals’ holding that Appellant was not entitled to a lesser-included instruction on manslaughter and, if necessary, to reconsider the Court's jurisprudence on lesser-included offenses. However, because the Court of Criminal Appeals agreed with the court of appeals that Appellant was not entitled to the lesser-included instruction, it affirmed its judgment. View "Hudson v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant was indicted for five counts of aggravated assault and one count of capital murder. The first five counts of the indictment alleged aggravated assaults of five patients of a dialysis clinic who suffered adverse episodes but did not die. The sixth count charged her with capital murder by murdering more than one person during the same criminal transaction or during different criminal transactions but pursuant to the same scheme or course of conduct. The jury acquitted the appellant on two of the aggravated assault charges. It found her guilty of three aggravated assaults and of capital murder. During closing arguments, the State told the jury, “The State has the burden of proof to prove that the Defendant caused the death of at least two of the five victims. You don’t have to agree as to which two.” Appellant argued for the first time on appeal that the language in the jury charge and the State’s closing argument allowed the jury to convict her of capital murder without agreeing on which two or more of the five named individuals were murdered by the appellant, violating the requirement that jury verdicts be unanimous. The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s judgment. The Court of Criminal Appeals granted review to consider whether a jury charge on capital murder under Penal Code Section 19.03(a)(7) must require the jurors to agree as to the identities and the number of the victims. Upon review, the Court reversed the trial court's judgment and remanded the case to the Court of Appeals. View "Saenz v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant John Shelby was driving his truck while carrying two passengers, his then boyfriend Frank Lopez, and another passenger, Raymundo Hernandez. According to Hernandez, a fight began inside the vehicle, during which appellant was repeatedly hitting Lopez. Appellant then caused his truck to collide with a marked police car that was pulled over onto the side of the road during a routine traffic stop. The collision resulted in serious bodily injury to two people: Trooper Hoppas, who was seated in the passenger seat of his police car, and the man he had stopped, who was standing by the side of the road. Trooper Hoppas suffered several broken bones in his foot and leg, which later required him to undergo knee reconstruction surgery. The man Trooper Hoppas had stopped suffered several fractured vertebrae in his back. After causing the collision, appellant fled on foot to a nearby parking lot, where he was later apprehended by police. A subsequent investigation revealed that appellant had a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.13. The State charged appellant with having committed five offenses stemming from this incident, and he was convicted of all five offenses in a single trial. Only two of those five convictions were raised on appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeals: (1) his conviction for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon against Trooper Hoppas, a public servant, a first-degree felony, for which appellant was sentenced to fourteen years’ imprisonment, and (2) intoxication assault against Trooper Hoppas, a second-degree felony when committed against a peace officer, for which appellant was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. Appellant argued that Double Jeopardy disallowed dual convictions for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon against a public servant and intoxication assault because they both stemmed from the same act. The Court of Criminal Appeals agreed, concluding the Legislature did not intend to authorize separate punishments for the offenses of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon against a public servant and intoxication assault when the convictions for those offenses are based upon the same assaultive conduct against a single person, and, therefore, the Court held that appellant’s dual convictions for both offenses violate double jeopardy. The judgment of the court of appeals was reversed and Shelby’s conviction for the less serious offense, intoxication assault, was vacated. View "Shelby v. Texas" on Justia Law

The issue this case presented for the Court of Criminal Appeals' review came as an interlocutory appeal by the State. The trial court granted appellee David Villarreal's motion to suppress blood evidence after his arrest for felony DWI and subjected to a warrantless blood-specimen collection. The State challenged the trial court’s and the court of appeals’s conclusion that the warrantless search of Villarreal’s blood under statutory authority providing for implied consent and mandatory blood-specimen collection violated the Fourth Amendment. In addressing the merits of the State’s challenge to the trial court’s ruling, the Court concluded that the warrantless, nonconsensual testing of a DWI suspect’s blood did not categorically fall within any recognized exception to the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement, nor could it be justified under a general Fourth Amendment balancing test. Accordingly, the Court of Criminal Appeals held that the search in this case violated the Fourth Amendment. With respect to the State’s specific complaints regarding the court of appeals’s analysis, although the court of appeals erred by determining that the State forfeited its implied-consent argument on appeal through stipulation, remand was unnecessary in light of both the court of appeals’s implicit rejection of that argument and the Court of Criminal Appeals' express rejection of that argument. Furthermore, the Court concluded that the court of appeals erred to address the constitutionality of the mandatory-blood-draw statute and, in light of the holding in this case, the Court declined to review the State’s complaint with respect to that matter. View "Texas v. Villarreal" on Justia Law

In this petition, appellant Michael Dansby challenged the court of appeals’s determination on remand that error was not preserved with respect to his complaint regarding his conditions of community supervision, which led that court to affirm the trial court’s judgment revoking his deferred-adjudication community supervision and ordering his imprisonment for indecency with a child. In his only question presented to the Court of Criminal Appeals, appellant argued that the court of appeals erred by determining that his failure to raise a Fifth Amendment objection to the conditions of community supervision at the time that they were imposed resulted in procedural default of his complaint on appeal. Appellant argues that he could not be faulted for failing to object to the conditions on the basis that they violated his Fifth Amendment constitutional right because he was not placed on notice that he would be required to “incriminate himself” as part of those conditions. The Court agreed with appellant. Therefore, the judgment of the court of appeals was reversed and the case remanded to address the merits of appellant’s Fifth Amendment complaint. View "Dansby v. Texas" on Justia Law

Applicant Neal Robbins was convicted in 1999 of the capital murder of his girlfriend’s seventeen-month-old daughter. The State did not seek the death penalty, and upon conviction applicant was sentenced to life in prison. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the judgment and sentence on direct appeal. The applicant filed a subsequent application for a writ of habeas corpus on September 3, 2013, pursuant to article 11.073 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure. Article 11.073 was passed during the 2013 legislative session and became effective on September 1, 2013. There were no factual changes in the applicant’s case since the filing of his first application. In both applications he argued he was entitled to a new trial because the medical examiner who testified for the prosecution, could no longer stand by her trial testimony regarding the cause of death. The only difference between the two applications was the enactment of the new law upon which the applicant now relies. Based on article 11.073, applicant argues he was entitled to relief because scientific evidence relied on by the State at trial has been contradicted by relevant scientific evidence that was unavailable at trial, and if it had been presented at trial he would not have been convicted. The Court of Criminal Appeals was persuaded by this argument, and granted applicant’s request for relief. View "In re Robbins" on Justia Law

Tomas Gallo sought habeas relief to challenge the death sentence he received when a jury convicted him of capital murder in 2007. Specifically, Gallo argued that the jury's answer to the special issue submitted during the punishment stage of his trial was corrupted by false testimony of the State's expert witness. The Court of Criminal Appeals denied relief on Gallo's initial post-conviction application. The attorney appointed to represent Gallo in the original habeas proceedings was Jerome Godinich, Jr. Godinich filed a subsequent application for habeas relief (the pleading at issue in this case). However, between the Court's denial of the initial writ application in 2013 and the filing of this application, Gallo was appointed a different attorney, A. Richard Ellis. Shortly after he was appointed to represent the applicant in federal court proceedings, Ellis filed a notice of appearance in this case and a motion to strike the subsequent post-conviction application that Godinich had filed, claiming that Godinich had filed it without the Gallo's permission. The convicting court forwarded the subsequent state post-conviction writ application to the Court of Criminal Appeals, who then remanded the subsequent writ application to the convicting court for additional fact development and recommended findings with respect to how it should proceed with the subsequent writ application that Godinich filed. In response, the convicting court entered the recommendation “that it [was] Attorney Godinich’s duty to continue representing [Gallo] until and unless relieved of his duties by [the Court of Criminal Appeals] or another court possessing jurisdiction.” The Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that Godinich's duty to represent Gallo did not extend beyond its denial of the state habeas application. In his affidavit on remand, Godinich opined that Gallo was "not of sufficiently sound mind to understand” Ellis’s ministrations, with the suggestion being that Gallo lacked the capacity to make a rational decision to forego Godinich’s services on his behalf in this subsequent writ application. The Court of Criminal Appeals held that Gallo had the benefit of court-appointed counsel in Ellis, albeit only for the federal habeas corpus proceedings. As long as Ellis remained Gallo's appointed federal habeas attorney, he had an obligation to continue to represent the applicant all the way through the state executive clemency process. "After conducting his federal investigation, Ellis would presumably be in a better position to gauge all of the potential claims for inclusion in a first subsequent writ application under Section 5 of Article 11.071, and thereby at least minimize the risk of additional procedural default by the failure to include reasonably available claims in the applicant’s first subsequent (-02) writ application that could bar him from raising them successfully in any subsequent subsequent (-03 or -04) writ application." The application Godinich filed was dismissed without prejudice to Gallo to later file a subsequent writ application that could be evaluated for abuse-of-write purposes under Texas law, as if it were Gallo's first subsequent writ application. View "Gallo v. Texas" on Justia Law

Applicant Billy Ray Bryant was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Applicant argued that he received ineffective assistance of counsel at his trial. Janie Mussett (Janie), Applicant’s live-in girlfriend at the time of the murders, was interviewed by police once the case was reopened, and after being told that she failed a polygraph test, she signed a written statement implicating Applicant. Applicant argued that trial counsel was ineffective because of his repeated failures to object to the polygraph evidence about Janie. After review of the trial court record, the Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that Applicant had shown by a preponderance of the evidence, that his trial counsel was deficient and that the deficiency prejudiced him. As a result, Applicant was granted habeas relief. The trial court's judgment was set aside, and the case remanded for further proceedings. View "Bryant v. Texas" on Justia Law

While out walking their dogs, ten-year-old Maka and a puppy, a neighbor's pit bull got loose and charged appellant and his wife. Frightened for the dogs, appellant's wife grabbed the puppy and ran for safety. Maka was not so lucky: the pit bull grabbed ahold of its neck and shook it. Appellant managed to separate Maka and the pit bull, but not before Maka received serious injury. A neighbor from a different house heard the commotion and came to appellant's aid. The pit bull bit both men as they tried to restrain the animal. Appellant took Maka home, and returned to the scene of the attack with a rope. Appellant looped the rope around the pit bull's neck, dragged the dog to his home, tied the dog to the bumper of one of his cars, then slashed the dog's throat with a knife. He was subsequently charged with cruelty to non-livestock. During a pretrial hearing, defense counsel explained that the defense would seek to rely upon section 822.013 of the Texas Health and Safety Code as authorizing appellant’s conduct: “[W]e think that provision in the law provides a[n] absolute authorization under the facts of this case for the defendant to do what he did.” Granting the State’s motion in limine, the trial judge restricted the parties from referring to the Health and Safety Code provision. At the conclusion of testimony, defendant asked for a jury instruction based on 822.013, which was ultimately denied. Appellant was convicted, and received a year of jail time. That sentence was suspended and appellant was placed on probation. On appeal, appellant complained that the trial judge erred in refusing to submit a defensive instruction based on 822.013. The court of appeals agreed that the trial court erred and reversed. After its review, the Court of Criminal Appeals agreed with the court of appeals, and affirmed the reversal of appellant's conviction and the remand for further proceedings. View "Chase v. Texas" on Justia Law