Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Appellant applied for habeas relief to challenge the trial court’s modification to the conditions of her community supervision that precluded Appellant from having any access to her own minor children. The trial court denied Appellant’s writ application, and the court of appeals affirmed the trial court’s denial of Appellant’s writ application. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed, finding that because the challenged modification infringed on Appellant’s fundamental constitutional right as a parent to have contact with her own children, the trial court should have held a hearing before issuing the modification. Following the trial court’s modification of her conditions that prohibited her from having contact with her own children, the Appellant was notified of those changes and refused to sign those conditions. Appellant’s attorney subsequently filed objections to those modifications and, failing to obtain relief, filed an Article 11.072 writ application. Having failed to provide the Appellant with a hearing at the time of the initial modification, under the facts of this case, the trial court could have remedied the situation by conducting a hearing before ruling on the 11.072 writ application. Since no hearing was held, Appellant had no opportunity to present evidence to support her challenge to the modification in question. Therefore, the court of appeals erred in affirming the trial court’s denial of Appellant’s claim for habeas relief. View "Ex parte Fineberg" on Justia Law

Appellant Sandra Briggs pled no contest to intoxication manslaughter of a peace officer. She claimed in a motion for new trial that her plea was involuntary because case law decided after she pled would have changed her mind, and she would have exercised her right to a jury trial. The trial court denied Briggs’s motion for new trial, but the Court of appeals reversed the trial court’s decision, finding that, “having the benefit of [the 2013 Missouri v.] McNeely [opinion] and its progeny,” Briggs’s attorney, in 2012, “misrepresented the law to Briggs as it relates to the admissibility of her blood-draw evidence.” The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that the court of appeals erred: [w]hen a defendant waives the right to have a jury determine guilt or innocence and admits or does not contest guilt, the defendant does so under the law existing at the time of the plea. The fact that Briggs’s attorney did not anticipate subsequent changes in the law does not impugn the truth or reliability of Briggs’s plea.” View "Briggs v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant was charged in three indictments with acting as a guard company without a license. The indictments, which alleged the same conduct on three separate dates, were later amended to charge him with accepting employment as a security officer to carry a firearm without a security officer commission. The question before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was whether the original indictments tolled the running of limitations for the amended indictments. The Court concluded they did not and affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals. View "Marks v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Fernando Smith filed a notice of appeal after he was adjudicated and sentenced in open court. While his appeal was pending (and before he filed his brief), Smith filed a motion for shock probation. When the trial court granted the motion, Smith attempted to appeal that as well, relying upon the general notice of appeal he had filed before he filed his motion for shock probation. The court of appeals dismissed Smith’s appeal because he did not file a separate notice of appeal after the order granting shock probation. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found the general notice of appeal from adjudication and sentencing did not act as a place holder notice for any appealable order that comes from the trial court’s actions thereafter. In the absence of a notice of appeal from the order granting shock probation, the court of appeals properly dismissed the appeal. View "Smith v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Cynthia Wood was indicted for the attempted capital murder of her son, K.W. Wood attempted to suffocate the child twice while he laid in the hospital, brought in because he allegedly stopped breathing while at home. Wood entered into an open plea of guilty. She was sentenced to life imprisonment, and argued to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that her sentence was illegal because the indictment did not charge, and she did not plead to, attempted capital murder. Finding Appellant’s life sentence to be an illegal sentence, the court of appeals reversed Appellant’s conviction for attempted capital murder and ordered the trial court to adjudge Appellant guilty of attempted murder. The case was remanded to the trial court to hold a new sentencing hearing. The State petitioned the Court of Criminal Appeals to review the decision of the court of appeals. The high court held that Appellant’s sentence was not an illegal sentence, and reversed and remanded to the court of appeals to address Appellant’s remaining points of error. View "Wood v. Texas" on Justia Law

In his petition for discretionary review, appellant Eddie Ette challenged the court of appeals' judgment upholding the imposition of a $10,000 fine assessed as part of his punishment for misapplication of fiduciary property. The fine was lawfully assessed by a jury, included in the trial court’s written judgment, but not orally pronounced at sentencing. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reduced the issues presented by this appeal as: (1) whether a trial court has no authority to alter a jury’s lawful verdict on punishment; or (2) whether sentences, including fines, must be orally pronounced in a defendant’s presence, and, as a matter of due process and fair notice, the sentence orally pronounced by the trial judge controls if it differs from the sentence detailed in the written judgment. The Court held the latter judicially created rule giving precedence to the oral pronouncement over the written judgment could not supplant a jury’s lawful verdict on punishment that has been correctly read aloud in a defendant’s presence in court. Accordingly, the Court held the trial court’s judgment could properly impose the fine against appellant despite the failure to orally pronounce it. Imposition of the fine was affirmed. View "Ette v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Fred Earl Ingerson III was convicted of capital murder for killing Robyn Richter and Shawna Ferris. The bodies of Richter and her friend Ferris, were found in Richter’s vehicle outside of a Japanese restaurant and sushi bar. They both were shot once in the head. Almost two years later, Ingerson was arrested for capital murder and was convicted. The State did not seek the death penalty; he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Ingerson appealed, in part arguing that the evidence was legally insufficient to support his conviction. The court of appeals agreed and rendered an acquittal. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals concluded the court of appeals erred in finding the evidence insufficient, reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Ingerson v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Teodoro Hernandez was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and family-violence assault by strangulation. The evidence showed that Hernandez struck the victim on her head or body and that he strangled her, but it showed that he poured water down her throat while he was strangling her, not while he was striking her. The court of appeals held that the evidence was insufficient to sustain the aggravated-assault-with-a-deadly-weapon conviction, but on original submission, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed and ordered Hernandez’s aggravated-assault-with-a-deadly-weapon conviction reinstated. After the high Court issued its opinion, Hernandez filed a timely motion for rehearing. Finding no reversible error, the Court reinstated its original opinion reversing the judgment of the court of appeals, rejecting Hernandez’s arguments on rehearing. View "Hernandez v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Elizabeth Garrels was charged by information with the misdemeanor offense of driving while intoxicated (DWI). She was tried by jury. The State’s first witness was Trooper Christopher Lucchese with the Texas Department of Public Safety, who performed the traffic stop and roadside investigation that eventually led to Garrels’ DWI arrest. Garrels objected that her statutory discovery rights had been violated by the State’s failure to timely designate the trooper as a potential “expert” witness. Although the State had formally designated Lucchese as a potential expert witness prior to jury selection, that designation occurred less than a week before jury selection. As a result of this untimely designation, Garrels asked that the witness not be allowed to testify in any expert capacity. Although the trial judge was not inclined to grant Garrels’s request to “strike” the officer’s testimony, he was also averse to the State’s request for a two-week continuance so that the terms of the discovery statute might be satisfied. Faced with two unappealing options, the judge sua sponte declared a mistrial. A defendant has a constitutional right to have her fate determined “before the first trier of fact.” A trial judge may violate this right by ordering a mistrial over her objection; but if she consented to it, double jeopardy will not prevent her re-prosecution. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reiterated that, although consent may be “implied” from the totality of the circumstances, it must nevertheless be supported by record-based evidence. Because the court of appeals found otherwise, the Court reversed. View "Ex parte Garrels" on Justia Law

Appellant Gary Carson was charged with three counts of assault on a public servant and three counts of bail jumping. After Appellant agreed to waive his right to appeal, the State agreed to waive its right to a jury trial and the case proceeded before the trial court. Appellant pleaded guilty to all six charges. The trial court accepted Appellant’s pleas, found him guilty, and sentenced him. Appellant then appealed his conviction. Having found that Appellant’s waiver of his right to appeal was invalid, the court of appeals affirmed Appellant’s convictions, but reversed the assessment of punishment. Because the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found Appellant’s waiver of his right to appeal was valid, it reversed. The case was remanded, however, for the court of appeals to address whether an exception to the waiver rules nevertheless applied in this case in which the trial judge admitted that he considered facts not introduced into evidence when assessing Appellant’s sentence. View "Carson v. Texas" on Justia Law