Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Christopher Wimberly was convicted of aggravated robbery and sentenced to fifty years’ imprisonment. In his fifth writ application, Wimberly claimed he was actually innocent of this offense based on newly available evidence - specifically, the confession by another prison inmate. After review, the Court of Criminal Appeals found the other inmate’s confession to the crime was not persuasive and not credible. Deferring to the findings made by the trial court, which were supported by the record, the Court held Wimberly did not meet his burden to prove that he was actually innocent of this offense, and relief was denied. View "Ex parte Christopher Wimberly" on Justia Law

The trial court granted a motion to suppress evidence, and the State appealed. Appellant Hector Macias was charged with committing family-violence assault. The State filed a motion to stay further trial court proceedings, which the court of appeals granted. Then on October 16, 2013, the court of appeals handed down an opinion reversing the trial court. The opinion made no explicit statement about the stay that the court of appeals had earlier granted. The trial court called the case for trial on January 16, 2014. The jury was chosen and sworn, the parties presented their evidence, and the guilt-phase jury charge was read to the jury. At that point, a prosecutor in the appellate section of the district attorney’s office approached the trial court with the information that the appellate mandate had not yet issued. Concluding that trial proceedings were a nullity and that it could not even declare a mistrial, the trial court dismissed the jury. The appellate mandate issued on January 30, 2014. Appellant subsequently filed a pretrial habeas application, alleging that any future trial on the charged offense would violate double jeopardy. The trial court denied the application, and Appellant appealed. The court of appeals determined that the question before it was whether jeopardy had attached to the trial proceedings that occurred. The court concluded that, if it had, then, absent manifest necessity to terminate that trial, any future trial would violate Appellant’s constitutional right against double jeopardy. The court of appeals further decided that jeopardy had attached unless the trial court lacked jurisdiction to conduct the trial. The question before the Court of Criminal Appeals was: Did the trial court have jurisdiction to conduct the trial? The Court answered that question “no,” because the appellate mandate had not yet issued. The Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals. View "Ex parte Hector Macias" on Justia Law

Appellant Richard Owings, Jr. was convicted by a jury of aggravated sexual assault of a child and sentenced to thirty years in prison. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that “the trial court committed harmful constitutional error in failing to require the State to make an election of the incident upon which it relied for conviction.” The Court of Criminal Appeals agreed the trial court committed constitutional error by failing to require the State to make an election of the incident upon which it relied for conviction. However, the Court disagreed with the appellate court’s harm analysis, holding that, under the particular facts of this case, the trial court’s erroneous failure to require the State to make an election was harmless. The Court reversed and remanded this case to the appellate court to address Appellant’s remaining point of error. View "Owings v. Texas" on Justia Law

In December 2014, a jury convicted Eric Williams of capital murder, for which he was sentenced to death. Direct appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was automatic. Williams was tried for the shooting deaths of Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthia in what was described as a “torrent of lead.” Williams was also accused of killing McLelland’s assistant, Mark Hasse. Hasse was shot as he arrived for work; the McLellands were shot in their home. Williams was alleged to have planned the shootings because Mr. McLelland prosecuted Williams in 2012 for allegedly stealing government property (two computer monitors), for which Williams lost his elected position as a justice of the peace. A licensed attorney, Williams was also disbarred. Williams raised forty points of error; the Court found no merit any. Consequently, it affirmed the trial court’s judgment and sentence of death. View "Williams v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellee Gordon Elrod was charged with fraudulent use or possession of identifying information and with two offenses of tampering with a governmental record. Appellee filed a motion to suppress evidence seized by police officers after they executed a search warrant at his hotel room. The trial court granted Appellee’s motion to suppress, finding that the affidavit in support of the search warrant did not establish probable cause. The Fifth Court of Appeals agreed and affirmed the trial court’s order. The Court of Criminal Appeals held that the affidavit at issue contained enough particularized facts given by a named informant to allow the magistrate to correctly determine that there was probable cause to issue a search warrant. The court of appeals erred by affirming the trial court’s order granting Appellee’s pretrial motion to suppress. Accordingly, the Court reversed the judgment of the Fifth Court of Appeals, vacated the trial court’s order granting the motion to suppress, and remanded the case to the trial court for further proceedings. View "Texas v. Elrod" on Justia Law

Appellant Jeromy Leax was charged with two counts of online solicitation of a minor under the pre-2015 version of Penal Code section 33.021(c) (2014). He filed a motion to quash the indictment (which he later amended), arguing that the statute under which he was convicted was facially unconstitutional when read together with other portions of the statute. The trial court denied the motion, and Leax entered guilty pleas as to both counts. He was sentenced to 13 years’ confinement on each count to be served concurrently. The court of appeals affirmed Leax’s convictions. The Court of Criminal Appeals granted review to determine whether the statute under which Leax was convicted (and its corresponding provisions) restricted speech on the basis of its content. In light of the Court’s decision in Ex parte Ingram v. State, PD-0578-16, 2017 WL 2799980 (Tex. Crim. App. June 28, 2017), the court found in this case because the “represents” definition of “minor” was constitutional as construed in Ingram, and the record was insufficiently developed to determine on appeal whether any of the anti-defensive provisions would have been invoked against Leax, the Court affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals. View "Leax v. Texas" on Justia Law

Orian Lee Scott was convicted of nine offenses in three separate indictments and was sentenced to a total of 100 years’ confinement. The Court of Criminal Appeals filed and set these writ applications to decide whether his counsel was ineffective at the punishment stage of trial. Each indictment was identical except that they named different victims. In each indictment, Scott was charged with one count of possession of child pornography, one count of inducing a sexual performance by a minor, and one count of producing or promoting a sexual performance by a child. After review, the Court found Scott had not proven he received ineffective assistance of counsel at the punishment phase of his trial, and denied relief. View "Ex parte Orian Lee Scott" on Justia Law

Appellant Teodoro Hernandez was convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The Court of Appeals held the evidence to be legally insufficient to establish the deadly-weapon element of the offense, reformed the judgment to reflect a conviction for the lesser-included offense of simple assault, and remanded for a new punishment hearing. The Court of Criminal Appeals held that the court of appeals erred by failing to consider all of the evidence presented at trial that might have supported the aggravated assault offense alleged in the indictment when conducting its legal sufficiency analysis. The evidence presented in this case was not legally insufficient to support a conviction for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Accordingly, the Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals to the extent that it reformed the trial court’s judgment, and reinstated the judgment of the trial court. View "Hernandez v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Mark Bolles was found guilty of possessing child pornography and sentenced to two years in prison. The Court of Appeals reversed Appellant’s conviction and rendered a judgment of acquittal, holding that the evidence, which consisted of two images taken by Appellant’s cell phone, was insufficient to support his conviction. The Court of Criminal Appeals found the court of appeals erred in holding that the evidence was insufficient, reversed and remanded the case to the trial court with instructions to reinstate Appellant’s conviction and his sentence. View "Texas v. Bolles" on Justia Law

After the State’s first witness, Officer Ruben Ramirez, was sworn-in and the trial court asked him to take a seat, a juror said, “Judge, I know [the witness]. I went to school with him.” The witness responded, “Yeah, I know him.” The jury was excused, and the juror was questioned by the judge and both parties. The trial judge made a finding that the juror was not biased (and that the trial would proceed with twelve jurors) but told the parties that they could agree to proceed with only eleven jurors. Defense counsel said that he wanted to proceed with eleven and that, if the juror was not removed, he would request a mistrial. The State agreed to the defense’s request, and the juror was removed. The eleven-member jury acquitted defendant Rene Gutierrez of two charges but convicted him of three others. Gutierrez moved for new trial arguing, that his attorney was ineffective because he advised Gutierrez to proceed with eleven jurors, and but for counsel’s erroneous advice, he would have requested a mistrial so a new jury of twelve could be impaneled. The trial court granted Gutierrez’s new-trial motion without entering any relevant findings of fact or conclusions of law. The State appealed, and the court of appeals agreed with Gutierrez that the trial court did not abuse its discretion. According to the court of appeals, a mistrial likely would have been granted had one been requested, because the trial court could have reasonably found that Gutierrez’s right to a jury trial by twelve was abridged and that he was harmed by that violation. The question in this case was whether the court of appeals erred when it affirmed the trial court’s granting of a new trial on ineffective-assistance-of-counsel grounds. The Court of Criminal Appeals concluded the court of appeals did err because the trial court should not have granted the motion. As a result, the court of appeals was reversed, the trial court’s order granting a new trial was vacated, and order the judgments of convictions and associated sentences reinstated. View "Texas v. Gutierrez" on Justia Law