Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Appellant Jamie Hallmark and the State entered into a plea agreement. According to the plea papers, Appellant would be sentenced to three years unless she failed to show up for her sentencing hearing, in which case she would be sentenced within the full range of punishment. Appellant did not show for her sentencing hearing, and she was later sentenced to ten years. The court of appeals determined that the “full range of punishment” part of the plea agreement was added by the trial court, that the trial court did not follow the parties’ plea bargain when it assessed the full range of punishment, and that the trial court abused its discretion in refusing to permit Appellant to withdraw her plea. After review, the Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that the court of appeals erred in finding an abuse of discretion because the “full range of punishment” term was a part of the plea agreement and Appellant failed to timely complain about any participation by the trial judge in the plea-bargaining process. View "Hallmark v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Johntay Gibson was convicted of capital murder during the course of an armed robbery of a mobile phone store in which the store’s owner was shot and killed. He received a sentence of imprisonment for life without the possibility of parole. During the investigation of the offense, Appellant was observed as the driver and sole occupant of a motor vehicle which was under surveillance for having been connected to the robbery suspects. After being stopped for traffic violations, marijuana was found, and it was determined that Appellant had three outstanding warrants. It was also determined that Appellant had provided a false name in identifying himself after the stop. Appellant was taken into custody and interviewed about the offense. Appellant filed a pre-trial suppression motion seeking suppression of the interview. The written motion did not address the allegation that there was a five hour span of time between the initial interview and the continuation of the interview which was absent any additional Miranda warnings. When the officer testified at trial, Appellant objected to the last part of the recorded custodial interview. In the objection, defense counsel specified that he was asking that the second part of the interview be suppressed because Appellant was not re-warned. After conviction and sentencing, on direct appeal to the Fourteenth Court of Appeals, Appellant included points of error claiming that the trial court erred in denying his motion to exclude the second part of his videotaped statement because peace officers failed to re-warn and advise him of his Miranda rights and failed to provide him with the proper warnings. The court of appeals noted, “Appellant’s written motion to suppress did not raise the issue presented on appeal,” and affirmed his conviction. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found that Appellant’s petition did sufficiently raise the issue on appeal, and the court of appeals erred in not addressing the merits of his appellate claim by holding that he failed to preserve error. View "Gibson v. Texas" on Justia Law

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