Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

The Court of Criminal Appeals granted the State’s petition for discretionary review to determine whether appellant Jose Vasquez preserved his objection to the two-step nature of his custodial interrogation when he lodged a delayed objection that put neither opposing counsel nor the trial court on notice as to its legal basis. Because the Court concluded that he did not, it reversed the judgment of the court of appeals. View "Vasquez v. Texas" on Justia Law

At William Finley’s bench trial, the judge convicted him for resisting arrest when opposing police attempts to handcuff him. The court of appeals found the evidence legally sufficient to support Finley’s conviction. The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed that judgment because Finley used force “against” the officers in opposing his arrest. View "Finley v. Texas" on Justia Law

Section 724.012(b)(3)(B) of the Texas Transportation Code required an officer who arrested a driver for the offense of Driving While Intoxicated to take a specimen of that driver’s breath or blood for an analysis of blood alcohol concentration when the officer has reliable information that the driver already has two or more prior DWI offenses. The DWI offender with two prior DWI convictions may not refuse, and the police must compel him to give a specimen, even in the absence of his assent-in-fact. Appellant Michael McGruder's sole argument in this case was that Section 724.012 violated the Fourth Amendment on its face because it required an arresting officer to take a specimen for blood-alcohol analysis regardless of whether he either: (1) first obtains a warrant or else (2) acts upon particularized exigent circumstances that would obviate the need for a warrant. After review, the Court of Criminal Appeals decided to vacate the court of appeals’ judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings. When the court of appeals was considering the merits of this case, it did not have the benefit of the decision of the United States Supreme Court in "City of Los Angeles v. Patel," (determining the standard of review for facial constitutionality) or the decision of the Court of Criminal Appeals in "Texas v. Villarreal." View "McGruder v. Texas" on Justia Law

The charges against appellant James Richard “Rick” Perry arose from actions taken while he was governor of the State of Texas. A grand jury returned a two-count indictment against him. Count I alleged the offense of “abuse of official capacity,” and Count II alleged the offense of “coercion of a public servant." In sum, Count I alleged that Governor Perry abused his official capacity by misusing funds appropriated to the Public Integrity Unit of the Travis County District Attorney’s Office, and Count II alleged that he coerced a public servant, District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg, by threatening to veto the funds for that unit if she did not resign. Whether the State could prosecute the governor for these acts depended on: (1) whether prosecuting the exercise of a veto under the “abuse of official capacity” statute is a violation of the Separation of Powers provision of the Texas Constitution; and (2) whether the relevant portion of the “coercion of a public servant” statute, being used to prosecute the threat to exercise a veto was facially unconstitutional in violation of the First Amendment. Before reaching the first question, a threshold question for the Court of Criminal Appeals was whether the governor could raise his separation of powers complaint as an as-applied challenge in a pretrial habeas application followed by an interlocutory appeal. Answering these three questions in the affirmative, the Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals with respect to count one, affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals with respect to count two, and ordered the dismissal of the indictment. View "Ex parte James Richard "Rick" Perry" on Justia Law

Reginald Nixon was charged in separate indictments with the offenses of burglary of a habitation and evading arrest or detention with a vehicle. The indictments were consolidated and tried before a jury. Nixon pleaded guilty to both indictments and pleaded true to each indictment’s enhancement provisions. the jury returned punishment verdicts of seven years’ and nine years’ confinement for two charged offenses to run consecutively. The judge instructed the jury that, by law, the sentences would be served concurrently. After additional deliberations, the jury returned verdicts of sixteen years’ confinement for each charge. According to statute, however, the judge was required to accept the original verdicts and reform them in accordance with the law. The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the court of appeals’ judgments and reformed the trial court’s judgments to reflect the original verdicts to be served concurrently. View "Nixon v. Texas" on Justia Law

Applicant Bryan Palmberg pled guilty to one count of possession of a controlled substance (cocaine), and the trial court sentenced him to ninety days’ confinement in county jail. He did not appeal his conviction. Seven and a half years later, however, Applicant filed a post-conviction application for habeas relief, claiming his guilty plea was involuntarily made because at the time he entered it, he mistakenly believed that if he proceeded to trial, the State would be able to prove the substance he possessed was cocaine. The Court of Criminal Appeals remanded the case back to the trial court for additional findins of fact. On return to the Court of Criminal Appeals, and after reviewing Applicant’s arguments in turn, the Court concluded that his particular set of circumstances did not fit any scenario in which the Court typically granted relief. As such, relief was denied. View "Ex parte Bryan Palmberg" on Justia Law

An indictment alleged that appellant Kevin Kent, a mortgage broker, had committed theft from four named complainants in an amount exceeding $200,000 and that the thefts occurred over a specified period and were pursuant to one scheme or continuing course of conduct. A jury found him guilty, and the trial court sentenced him to sixty years’ imprisonment and ordered him to pay restitution to the complainants. On appeal, appellant alleged the trial court erred in instructing the jury. The court of appeals agreed, reversed the trial court’s judgment, and remanded for a new trial. The Court of Criminal Appeals granted the state’s petition for discretionary review challenging that decision. The state argued that appellant’s requested jury-charge instruction, which identified each separate transaction in the aggregated theft and required unanimity on each one, “was incorrect because it was phrased in the conjunctive.” It also argued that “such unanimity was not required because aggregate theft is considered to be one offense, " adding that “appellant was not harmed, either egregiously or otherwise, because his defense did not depend on separating and defeating each individual transaction.” After review, the Court found that the jury was not erroneously instructed, reversed the court of appeals and affirmed the trial court's judgment. View "Kent v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Richard Rabb was charged with the offense of tampering with evidence by destruction. At trial, the court found Appellant guilty and sentenced him to six years’ imprisonment. Appellant appealed, asserting that the evidence was legally insufficient to support his conviction and the court of appeals agreed. The State then filed a petition for discretionary review, which the Court of Criminal Appeals granted. After review, the Court agreed with the court of appeals’ decision, but remanded the case to the court of appeals to have it determine whether Appellant’s conviction should have been reformed to a conviction on the lesser-included offense of attempted tampering with evidence under "Thornton v. Texas," (425 S.W.3d 289 (2014)). The court of appeals found that it could not reform Appellant’s conviction because he lacked the specific intent to destroy the evidence. The State filed a another petition for discretionary review, which was granted, in order to consider whether the court of appeals erred in its application of "Thornton" and in choosing not to reform the judgment to the lesser-included offense of attempted tampering with evidence. Upon review, the Court of Criminal Appeals disagreed with the court of appeals that the factfinder in this case did not necessarily find every element necessary to convict Appellant of attempted tampering with evidence. The Court also concluded that the evidence presented at the bench trial was sufficient to support a conviction of attempted tampering. With the two prongs of the "Thornton" reformation analysis satisfied, reformation of the conviction was mandated. Therefore, the court of appeals was reversed, and the trial court ordered to reform Appellant’s judgment to reflect a conviction of attempted tampering with evidence and to conduct a new punishment hearing based on this reformed conviction. View "Rabb v. Texas" on Justia Law

The State appealed for discretionary review, arguing that the court of appeals erred in reversing appellant Juan Blea's conviction for first-degree aggravated assault of a family member against his then-girlfriend, Justina Fassett. The appellate court determined that the evidence was legally insufficient to establish the element of "serious bodily injury." The State maintained that the court of appeals should have examined the injuries as they were inflicted by appellant, rather than assessing the injuries in their improved or ameliorated condition after medical treatment. The Court of Criminal Appeals agreed with the State: the evidence showed that appellant’s actions lacerated Fassett’s liver and collapsed her lung; that Fassett was taken to the hospital due to her trouble breathing; that she was hospitalized for four days; that her lung injury required a tube to permit breathing; and in light of the testimony describing her risk of death from the type of injuries that she sustained, the jury could have rationally inferred that Fassett’s injuries caused her a substantial risk of death. Concluding that the evidence was legally sufficient, the Court reversed the court of appeals, and reinstated the trial court’s judgment against appellant. View "Blea v. Texas" on Justia Law

Applicant Ricky Molina applied for habeas relief, asserting eight claims as basis for such relief, including one claim alleging that the judgment in his case did not adequately reflect credit for the time he served in county jail before his sentence was pronounced. Applicant, however, did not claim to have exhausted all his administrative remedies to this alleged error. Under Section 501.0081 of the Texas Government Code, an applicant must exhaust all administrative remedies before he may bring a claim in an 11.07 writ application that he was not being properly credited with time served on his sentence. This writ application centered on the issue of whether applicants must exhaust their administrative remedies under Section 501.0081 of the Texas Government Code before they may bring a post-conviction application for writ of habeas corpus alleging that the judgment is incorrect for failing to credit them for time that they served in jail before their sentence was imposed. After review, the Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that such claims were not subject to the Section 501.0081 exhaustion requirement. View "Ex parte Ricky Molina" on Justia Law