Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

An officer activated his emergency lights and approached a parked vehicle at a “park and ride” lot. The main use of the park-and-ride was “during the daytime for people that go into plant traffic and park,” but it was open twenty-four hours. The park-and-ride was close to a bar, and because the bar’s own parking lot was small, patrons often parked at the park-and-ride and walked over. Sergeant Robert Cox knew that the park-and-ride was a place where “a variety of criminal activity” took place, including burglaries of motor vehicles, public lewdness, and illicit drugs. In his ten years of patrolling the area. When patrolling the park-and-ride, the sergeant’s general practice was to drive around the lot and shine a spotlight on the vehicles. Sergeant Cox saw a vehicle parked by itself away from where other vehicles were parked. This solitary vehicle’s headlights and other outside lights were off, and there were no lights on inside the vehicle. When he shined his spotlight on the vehicle, Sergeant Cox could tell that there were two occupants and that there was movement inside the vehicle. He approached the vehicle on foot, made contact on the driver’s side using caution, and identified himself. At some point, the driver’s side window was rolled down, and once that occurred, Sergeant Cox smelled marijuana. Appellant Jacob Johnson appealed the charges against him (presumably for drug possession) and the trial court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained after his encounter with Sergeant Cox, arguing the officer did not have a reasonable suspicion to detain him, making the whole encounter unconstitutional. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals concluded the officer had reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigative detention because the parking lot had a significant association with criminal activity and because the occupants of the vehicle engaged in activity that appeared secretive and was unusual for the time and place. Consequently, the judgment of the court of appeals was reversed, and the judgment of the trial court was affirmed. View "Johnson v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Alberto Montelongo was charged with one count of attempted capital murder of Jesus Rodriguez and Angelica Parra, five counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and one count of continuous family violence against Parra. Appellant was tried on the attempted capital murder count and the continuous family violence count, and the jury found him guilty of both charges. The jury assessed punishment at 99 years on the attempted capital murder charge and 10 years on the continuous family violence charge. The trial court entered the judgment of conviction and imposed the sentence in open court on September 30, 2015. Appellant timely filed and presented a motion for new trial in which he requested a hearing. The trial court initially scheduled a hearing, but it later sua sponte cancelled the hearing without rescheduling. No hearing was held, the trial court made no rulings on the motion, and the motion was overruled by operation of law. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that timely filing and presenting a motion for new trial that requests a hearing preserves, for appellate review, the issue of whether the trial court abuses its discretion in failing to hold such a hearing. The judgment of the court of appeals was reversed, and the case was remanded to the court of appeals to consider Appellant’s first issue. View "Montelongo v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Us Carnell Petetan, Jr. was convicted of the capital murder of his wife, Kimberly Petetan. The jury rejected, in a special issue, Appellant's claim that he was intellectually disabled and therefore categorically ineligible for the death penalty. And the jury answered the statutory special issues in such a manner that Appellant was sentenced to death. Appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was automatic, and the Court affirmed. Among the points of error the Court rejected were three relating to Appellant’s claim that he was intellectually disabled: that the jury’s answer to the intellectual disability special issue was against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence (claim 10); that he was ineligible for the death penalty due to intellectual disability (claim 11); and that he was entitled to a pre-trial determination of his intellectual disability (claim 27). At that time, Texas’s standard for evaluating claims of intellectual disability was being reviewed by the United States Supreme Court; the question before the Supreme Court was whether Texas’s legal standard for determining intellectual disability violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against the execution of intellectually disabled people. Before the Court of Criminal Appeals issued its mandate in Appellant Petetan’s case, the Supreme Court decided that it did. The Texas Court thereafter granted rehearing on its own motion to consider Appellant’s tenth, eleventh, and twenty-seventh claims in light of Moore. The Court substituted this opinion on rehearing for resolution of those three issues, but left the resolution of the other issues in the original opinion intact. Here, the Court again rejected the claim that Appellant was entitled to a pre-trial determination of his intellectual disability. Concerning the sufficiency of the evidence regarding the jury’s rejection of his intellectual disability claims, the Court held that, although legally sufficient, the evidence was factually insufficient to support the jury’s rejection of the intellectual disability special issue. Appellant was therefore entitled to a new punishment hearing. Accordingly, Appellant’s death sentence was vacated, and this case remanded for a new punishment hearing. View "Petetan v. Texas" on Justia Law

The veniremembers summoned for Appellant Jeffrey Spielbauer’s non-death, capital-murder trial were required to answer a questionnaire that asked, among other things, whether they had heard about Appellant’s case and formed an opinion about his guilt or innocence. Six veniremembers answered these questions yes, and the trial court, over Appellant’s objection, questioned them individually about their answers. Ultimately the trial court denied Appellant’s for-cause challenges to two of these veniremembers, and Appellant complained about those rulings on appeal. The court of appeals reversed, finding that Article 35.16(a)(10) required dismissal of the veniremembers based on their questionnaires. The State petitioned the Texas Court of Criminal Appeal, which reversed, finding the parties here agreed the questionnaires were answered before voir dire began. Thus, they were not part of formal voir dire, and the answers they prompted would not by themselves support a challenge for cause or compel Article 35.16(a)(10)’s injunction against further interrogation. Therefore, the Court found the trial court did not abuse its discretion in personally questioning the veniremembers who answered yes to the two questions at issue here. View "Spielbauer v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Juan Raul Navarro Ramirez appealed a trial court’s denial of his motion for post-conviction DNA testing. Appellant was convicted and sentenced to death in 2004 for intentionally and knowingly causing the deaths of Jimmy Almendarez, Juan Delgado III, Jerry Hildalgo, Juan Delgado Jr., Ruben Castillo, and Ray Hidalgo by shooting them with a firearm during the same criminal transaction. Appellant argued the trial court erred in denying the motion. After review, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals concluded Appellant had not establish by a preponderance of the evidence he would not have been convicted in exculpatory results had been obtained through DNA testing. “Given the number of accomplices, murdered victims, party liability, testimony of the Aunt, admitted physical evidence, and Appellant’s confession, the hats could not have produced true exculpatory evidence in this case.” Accordingly, the Court affirmed the trial court’s order denying the motion for forensic DNA testing. View "Ramirez v. Texas" on Justia Law

Cambodian national and appellant, Vith Loch, pled guilty to murder. A jury sentenced him to life and assessed a $10,000 fine. The Court of Appeals reversed, finding the trial court erred when it failed to properly admonish Appellant about the potential immigration consequences of his guilty plea and, importantly, that the trial court’s error was not harmless. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted the State Prosecuting Attorney’s (SPA) petition for discretionary review to determine whether the court of appeals erred by concluding that the failure to admonish Appellant was not harmless. Because Appellant was likely already subject to removal when he entered his guilty plea in this case, and because of the strong evidence of Appellant’s guilt, the Court had "a fair assurance" that Appellant would not have changed his mind about entering the plea, even had he been properly admonished by the trial court. Under these circumstances, the Court concluded Appellant’s substantial rights were not affected. The judgment of the court of appeals was reversed, and this case was remanded to that court for resolution of Appellant’s remaining points of error. View "Loch v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Christopher Miranda, a high school gymnastics coach in El Paso, was accused of having improper relationships with three of his female students. He confessed to a school administrator to engaging in sexual intercourse with each student. This case involved one of those students and whether the corpus delicti of the offenses perpetrated against her was shown by independent corroborating evidence. The court of appeals concluded that they had not, finding instead no evidence corroborating Appellant’s confession and that the closely-related-crimes exception to strict application of the corpus delicti rule did not apply. It rendered acquittals on some counts. After review, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals disagreed with the appellate court and reinstated Appellant's convictions. View "Miranda v. Texas" on Justia Law

Early one morning in March 2017, a telephone caller to the Van Alstyne Police Department reported a gray minivan being driven erratically. The caller, who was driving in the same direction, followed the minivan to a gas station, told police where it had been parked, relayed the vehicle’s license plate information, then hung up. The caller did not describe the driver. Police found the minivan a few minutes later. The motor was off, and Appellant Robert Harrell, Jr. was in the driver’s seat with the seatbelt buckled. There was no evidence about where the keys were, but Appellant admitted he had been driving. There were two passengers in the back. All three people in the minivan were intoxicated. The court of appeals held that the evidence did not tend to show the corpus delicti of DWI because, absent Appellant’s extrajudicial confession, there was insufficient evidence that he operated the minivan. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals concluded the evidence was sufficient to support Appellant’s conviction, reversed the court of appeals' judgment, and remanded the case for the lower court to address Appellant’s remaining issue. View "Harrell v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Matthew Allen was convicted by jury of committing Continuous Sexual Abuse of a Young Child, Indecency with a Child by Exposure, and Indecency with a Child by Contact. Appellant challenged the sufficiency of the evidence, and the court of appeals upheld the convictions for Continuous Sexual Abuse of a Young Child and Indecency with a Child by Contact, but reversed the Indecency with a Child by Exposure conviction. In upholding the Indecency with a Child by Contact conviction, the court of appeals modified the judgment to state that the offense was committed in December 2011, which was within the October 1, 2009–August 15, 2012 time period that the indictment alleged for the Continuous Sexual Abuse of a Young Child offense. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that Appellant’s conviction for Indecency with a Child by Contact violated Penal Code section 21.02(e)(2). The Court found the evidence supporting the Indecency with a Child by Contact offense showed that it occurred within the time period the Continuous Sexual Abuse of a Young Child offense was committed. The Court affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals in part, reversed the judgment of the court of appeals in part, and vacated Appellant’s conviction for Indecency with a Child by Contact. View "Allen v. Texas" on Justia Law

In March 2005, a jury found Applicant Humberto Garza guilty of murdering six men in the course of committing or attempting to commit robbery. Applicant was sentenced to death for these crimes, and his sentence was affirmed on direct appeal. Applicant filed his initial habeas corpus application in 2007 raising twenty-eight claims for relief, including twelve allegations of ineffective assistance of counsel. Over five years after Applicant filed his initial application, and after prompting by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the trial court entered an order designating issues. In that order, the trial judge directed lead trial counsel and co-counsel to file affidavits responding to Applicant’s ineffective-assistance-of-counsel allegations. The trial court held an evidentiary hearing in August 2014, during which both attorneys testified. In February 2015, the trial court signed a 635-page order adopting findings of fact and conclusions of law recommending that Applicant be denied relief on all grounds. In his third allegation, Applicant asserted that his trial counsel’s failure to conduct a constitutionally adequate investigation of mitigating evidence deprived him of his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel pursuant to Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510 (2003). The Court of Criminal Appeals remanded this claim to the trial court for further development. The trial court signed an order adopting supplemental findings of fact and conclusions of law, recommended denying relief, and returned the case the Court of Criminal Appeals. After remand, the Court filed and set the case and directed the parties to submit briefs on Applicant’s third allegation. Based on its independent review of the record, the Court concluded Applicant was entitled to a new punishment hearing because his trial counsel’s mitigation investigation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness, and had counsel not been deficient, there was a reasonable probability that at least one juror would have struck a different balance and would have answered the mitigation issue differently, voting to spare Applicant’s life. View "Ex parte Humberto Garza" on Justia Law