Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

Appellant was found guilty of forgery, and on appeal the court of appeals reversed the conviction, holding that the evidence was insufficient because there was no proof that Appellant had the intent to defraud or harm another. The State Prosecuting Attorney filed a petition for discretionary review, which was granted. The State argued that the court of appeals did not examine the totality of the evidence or reasonable inferences therefrom. After review, the Court of Criminal Appeals agreed and reversed. View "Ramsey v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant was convicted of hindering apprehension after encouraging her boyfriend, Demarcus Degrate, to run from United States Marshals who were arresting him. Because the State alleged that Appellant knew that Degrate was charged with a felony, her offense was elevated to a third-degree felony, and she was sentenced to four years in prison. Appellant appealed, arguing that the evidence was insufficient to support her conviction. The court of appeals found the evidence to be sufficient and affirmed. Appellant appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeals, arguing that the evidence was legally sufficient to prove that she knew Degrate was charged with a felony offense. The Court found that the evidence in this case was insufficient to support Appellant’s felony conviction. However, the State was correct in asserting that the element of knowledge that Degrate was being arrested for a felony offense was an aggravating factor and, therefore, the trial court necessarily found the essential elements of misdemeanor hindering apprehension. Therefore, the Court of Criminal Appeals reformed the judgment to reflect a conviction of misdemeanor hindering apprehension and remanded the case to the trial court to conduct a new punishment hearing. View "Nowlin v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant Charles Owens was charged with felony murder after he led police on a high-speed chase during which he hit two vehicles and killed one of the drivers. Before trial, he filed a motion arguing that he was incompetent to stand trial. Appellant claimed that, due to traumatic brain injury caused by the crash, he suffered from amnesia and was unable to remember anything about the wreck. After a mental-health assessment, the defense expert concluded that, even if Appellant did suffer from amnesia (which the expert could not rule out), such condition did not render him incompetent to stand trial. At the competency trial, Appellant called the expert to the stand to testify about his conclusions, but before the expert could testify regarding the substance of his report, Appellant objected to his own witness and argued that the expert was not qualified to be appointed or testify as a competency expert. As grounds for his objection, Appellant contended that the witness did not meet a necessary continuing-education requirement. The judge allowed Appellant to argue that the expert was not statutorily allowed to be appointed but otherwise overruled his objection and allowed the expert to testify. Appellant was found competent and later convicted of felony murder. He appealed, and the court of appeals reversed and remanded for a new trial. It held that the trial court erred because the expert did not meet the statutory qualifications for a competency expert and that Appellant was harmed by that error. The Court of Criminal Appeals disagreed with that judgment, and reversed. View "Owens v. Texas" on Justia Law

The trial judge granted Larry Swearingen’s request for post-conviction DNA testing of several pieces of evidence under Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 64. The judge also conditionally granted Swearingen’s motion to release certain evidence for preliminary testing to determine whether the evidence contained biological material. The Court of Criminal Appeals found that Swearingen failed to satisfy Chapter 64’s requirements and reversed the judge’s order. View "Swearingen v. Texas" on Justia Law

After being convicted and sentenced for online solicitation of a minor, Curtis Fournier and Christopher Dowden filed applications for a writ of habeas corpus. In addition to seeking relief based on the Court of Criminal Appeals' opinion holding the applicable statute unconstitutionally overbroad, Applicants also sought relief under an actual innocence theory. Holding that Applicants did not present true actual innocence claims, the Court concluded they were not entitled to actual innocence relief. However, consistent with precedents granting relief under an unconstitutional statute theory, the Court set aside Applicants’ judgments. The cases were remanded to their respective trial courts for dismissal of the indictments. View "Fournier v. Texas" on Justia Law

Ricardo Beltran was convicted by a jury of murder and sentenced to seventy years. On direct appeal, Beltran asserted that the trial court erred in denying his request for an instruction on sudden passion. The Fifth Court of Appeals affirmed his conviction, holding that the trial court did not err in refusing to give the instruction because there was no evidence that Beltran caused the victim’s death under the immediate influence of sudden passion. After review, the Court of Criminal Appeals disagreed and held that Beltran was entitled to an instruction on sudden passion. Accordingly, the Court reversed the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remanded this case for a harm analysis in accordance with "Almanza v. Texas." View "Beltran v. Texas" on Justia Law

Defendant-appellant Kenneth Douds was arrested for drunk driving. He challenged the trial court's denial of his motion to suppress blood-specimen evidence that was admitted at trial. He asserted both that: (1) the statutory requirements for a mandatory blood draw had not been met; and (2) the mandatory-blood-draw statute, as applied to him, had resulted in a warrantless seizure of his blood in violation of the Fourth Amendment. After the close of evidence, the trial court heard arguments and requested briefing from the parties. Appellant expressly told the trial court that he was limiting a second motion to a complaint about the admission of his oral statements. The issue this case presented for the Court of Criminal Appeals' review was whether isolated statements globally asserting that a blood draw was conducted without a warrant enough to apprise the trial court that it had to consider whether there were exigent circumstances to permit a warrantless search in a driving while intoxicated case, when the context of the entire record in a motion to suppress referred to a different complaint. The Court concluded that the answer to this question is “no.” Because this record showed that appellant failed to preserve his complaint that the search was conducted in the absence of exigent circumstances or some other valid exception to the warrant requirement, the Court affirmed the State’s first ground in its petition for discretionary review that the court of appeals erred by reversing appellant's conviction. View "Douds v. Texas" on Justia Law

Elisa Wilson was convicted of telephone-harassment conviction. On appeal, she claimed that the evidence was legally insufficient to establish that she made repeated telephone communications in a manner reasonably likely to annoy or alarm another. The court of appeals acquitted Wilson, finding that Wilson’s calls were neither repeated nor reasonably likely to harass or annoy. The Court of Criminal Appeals held that: (1) the phrase “repeated telephone communications” did not require the communications to occur within a certain time frame in relation to one another; and (2) a facially legitimate reason for the communication did not negate per se an element of the statute. View "Wilson v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant was charged with twenty-six counts of improper photography or visual recording. Each count of the indictment alleged appellant, “with intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of THE DEFENDANT, did by electronic means record another . . . at a location that was not a bathroom or private dressing room.” Each count further specified the name of an “.avi” file that was recorded. Some of the counts contained additional information regarding the subject matter and location of the recording. Appellant filed a pretrial application for a writ of habeas corpus, in which he alleged that the statute on which his prosecution was based was facially unconstitutional in violation of the First Amendment. The trial court denied the application, and appellant appealed. The “improper photography or visual recording” statute makes it a crime to, among other things, photograph or record by electronic means a visual image of another person under certain circumstances. Subsection (b)(1) of the statute makes such acts a crime if: (1) the person being photographed or recorded is not in a bathroom or private dressing room; (2) the photograph or recording of the person is made without that person’s consent; and (3) the photograph or recording is made with the intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person. The Court of Criminal Appeals held that, to the extent that it proscribed taking photographs and recording visual images, Subsection (b)(1) of the statute was facially unconstitutional in violation of the freedom of speech guarantee of the First Amendment. Consequently, the Court affirmed the Court of Appeals. View "In re Thompson" on Justia Law

Appellant Roman Ramirez-Memije was charged with fraudulent possession of identifying information under Texas Penal Code Section 32.51(b). A jury found him guilty and sentenced him to three years’ imprisonment. He appealed, arguing that the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury on voluntary conduct under Section 6.01 and on presumptions under Section 2.05 of the Penal Code, and erred in admitting testimony that he was from Mexico and was working illegally in the United States. The court of appeals reversed the trial court’s judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings. The Court of Criminal Appeals granted the State's petition for discretionary review to address whether defendant was entitled to an instruction on voluntary possession when he claimed he did not know the forbidden nature of the thing he possessed, or was his defense merely a negation of his knowledge of surrounding circumstances that is required by Section 6.03(b). The Court held that Appellant was not entitled to the requested instruction, and reversed the court of appeals' decision. The case was remanded to the court of appeals for consideration of Appellant’s remaining issues. View "Ramirez-Memije v. Texas" on Justia Law