Justia Constitutional Law Opinion Summaries

The parties agreed that appellant's first name was Peter. At issue in this case were three exhibits that purported to be documentary evidence of prior convictions of a Peter Bruton from the United Kingdom. State's Exhibit 13 consisted of a letter and three "certificates of conviction" purporting to be from the Norwich Crown Court. The letter, addressed to the Denton County District Attorney and signed by a person purporting to be a caseworker from that court, directs the District Attorney to the "enclosed Certificates of Conviction as requested" for a "Peter Bruton" with a date of birth matching appellant's. The certificates of conviction "certify" a "Peter Bruton," with a date of birth matching appellant's, as having a total of twelve convictions for "indecent assault on a female." The letter and the certificates of conviction displayed a depiction of a crown with a lion and a unicorn, and all four documents provided case numbers for the convictions. The certificates of conviction were dated October 2008, and the letter referring to those certificates says that the certificates were enclosed in response to the District Attorney's letter. In this case, the issue before the Court of Criminal Appeals was whether two State's exhibits that purport to be foreign public documents or records were properly authenticated under Rules of Evidence 902(3) and (4). Although the documents met some of the requirements of the rules, the Court held that the documents were not properly authenticated because neither was accompanied by a final certification from a diplomatic or consular official specified in Rule 902(3) and because good cause for failing to obtain a final certification was lacking. View "Brunton v. Texas" on Justia Law

Vernon Moses was shot and killed in an apartment complex in Houston. Multiple witnesses gave statements to police; some of the witnesses testified at trial. Among those who testified was appellee Jeremy Thomas' girlfriend, Ciarra Vallery. Vallery stated that her sister, Shelita, was at the apartment complex on the night in question and told Vallery about the shooting, though Shelita said she "didn't see too much of it." During a bench conference after Vallery's testimony, the prosecutor asked defense counsel, "Are you going to put on [Shelita]?" Defense counsel responded, "No." Although Shelita did not testify at trial, she had given the police a statement, which appellee reviewed before giving his own statement to the police. Shelita's statement was made known and available to defense counsel months before the trial. A jury convicted appellee of murdering Moses, and the trial court assessed punishment at confinement for life. The question before the Court of Criminal Appeals in this case was whether a new trial could be granted in the interest of justice on a claim that defense counsel failed to call an exculpatory witness who was known to him and available at trial, if the claim was not based on ineffective assistance of counsel. The Court held that it could not. Therefore the Court affirmed the court of appeals which reserved the trial court. View "Texas v. Thomas" on Justia Law

Appellant Brian Campbell was charged with arson and criminal mischief with pecuniary loss in excess of $200,000 for burning down an Arby's restaurant. Appellant was convicted of both offenses and sentenced to ten years' confinement on each count. On appeal, Appellant argued that the evidence was legally insufficient to support his conviction for criminal mischief. The court of appeals agreed and reversed a judgment of acquittal on appellant's criminal-mischief conviction, but it affirmed his conviction for arson. The State appealed, raising two issues: (1) "Is the amount of money an owner received from an insurance claim for destroyed or damaged property sufficient to prove pecuniary loss[;]" and (2) "is an owner's testimony that it would cost him $1,000,000 to replace an Arby's restaurant sufficient to prove the cost of replacement of the property?" Upon review of the appellate court's decision, the Court of Criminal Appeals reversed and reinstated the trial court's judgment. View "Campbell v. Texas" on Justia Law

In November 2000, appellant pled guilty to aggregate theft and elected to have the judge assess punishment without an agreed recommendation. The judge assessed appellant's punishment at ten years' imprisonment but suspended his sentence and placed him on straight probation with ten years' community supervision. About five years after appellant had satisfactorily completed his probation, he was indicted for two third-degree felonies that he committed in 2006: falsely holding oneself out as a lawyer and aggregate theft of over $20,000 and under $100,000. Appellant was tried for both offenses at a single trial in November 2010. Prior to trial, the parties filed pretrial motions and had discussions with the trial court about the legal consequences stemming from the early termination of appellant's prior community supervision. Appellant filed a motion in limine seeking a hearing to determine, in part, whether the prior convictions listed in the State's notice were "final convictions." Appellant also filed a pretrial motion for community supervision acknowledging his earlier community supervision for felony theft that had been set aside, but later changed that election to be sentenced by the trial-court judge, apparently after the judge determined that appellant would be ineligible for community supervision from the jury. In this case, the issue before the Court of Criminal Appeals was whether appellant was eligible for felony community supervision from a jury when his prior community supervision, which he received under a straight probation and which was terminated by a discharge order that permitted him to withdraw his plea of guilty, dismissed the indictment, and set aside the verdict, became resurrected by the conviction. The Court held that the court of appeals properly determined: (1) appellant was not eligible for community supervision from the jury because his conviction in this case revived his earlier conviction for the limited purpose of probation ineligibility, even though his earlier conviction had been terminated by a discharge order that permitted him to withdraw his plea of guilty, dismissed the indictment, and set aside the verdict; and (2) appellant did not preserve his complaint that it is impermissible to impeach his testimony with a prior probation that was discharged through judicial clemency. The judgment of the court of appeals was affirmed. View "Yazdchi v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant pled guilty to driving while intoxicated. The trial judge accepted his plea and ordered him to pay $7,767.88 in restitution to Lubbock Power and Light (LP&L) for repairing a utility pole that appellant's car had struck. Appellant appealed, arguing that Article 42.037 Footnote of the Code of Criminal Procedure did not authorize restitution because LP&L was not a "victim" of the offense for which he was convicted. The court of appeals agreed and reversed the trial court. The Court of Criminal Appeals granted review and concluded that restitution: (1) may be ordered in a DWI case; and (2) may be ordered for someone whose name did not appear in the charging instrument. "However, the State must prove that the defendant's commission of the offense was the direct cause of the harm. Because the State failed to prove that appellant’s intoxicated driving caused the damage to the utility pole, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals, which had deleted the restitution order." View "Hanna v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant was a native Spanish speaker who did not understand English. The trial judge was aware of this fact at trial but did not appoint an interpreter. The question before the Court of Criminal Appeals in this case was whether the record needed to contain a waiver colloquy between the trial judge and the defendant before an appellate court could conclude that a defendant waived his right to an interpreter. The Court held that the record did not have to contain such a colloquy, as long as the record otherwise affirmatively reflects that a waiver occurred. Concluding that the record affirmatively reflected a waiver in this case, the Court affirmed the court of appeals. View "Garcia v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant was charged with indecency with a child and aggravated sexual assault of a child. After the victim completed her direct-examination testimony, the defense's first question on cross-examination was, "Did you also make an allegation that [Appellant] did these same things to his own daughter?" After a hearing, the trial court granted the State's request for a mistrial. Appellant then filed a pretrial habeas-corpus application seeking to prevent a second trial on the basis of double jeopardy. The court denied that application because it found (as it did at trial) that the mistrial was the fault of the defense and that there was no other appropriate remedy under the circumstances; thus there was a manifest necessity to retry Appellant, and his second trial was not precluded by double-jeopardy principles. Appellant was convicted at his second trial of one count of indecency with a child and seven counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. On appeal, Appellant argued that his second trial violated double-jeopardy principles; the Court of Appeals held that the trial court properly granted the State's request for a mistrial. The single issue appellant raised on appeal was whether appellant's trial counsel created the type of circumstances necessary to compel the trial court to declare a mistrial. Finding no reversible error, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the appellate court's judgment. View "Pierson v. Texas" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, appellant was convicted of the third-degree felony offense of tampering with evidence, on a theory of concealment, for reaching into his pocket, pulling out a crack pipe, and dropping it to the ground in the presence of two police officers. On appeal, the Seventh Court of Appeals deemed the evidence to be insufficient to support a conviction for tampering with evidence by concealment because the evidence showed that "at least one of the officers on the scene . . . was aware of the presence of the item alleged to have been concealed" at all times. Accordingly, it reversed the trial court's judgment and ordered that appellant be acquitted. After the Court of Criminal Appeals remanded the case for the court of appeals to consider reforming the judgment to reflect a conviction for attempted tampering with evidence, the court of appeals explicitly declined to do so. The Court of Criminal Appeals granted the State's petition for discretionary review to address three issues relating to the court of appeals' opinion on remand: (1) whether the court of appeals erred in holding the State failed to "preserve" the issue of reformation; (2) whether the court of appeals erred in holding reformation may be used only to reform "aggravating elements" of an offense; and (3) whether the court of appeals erred in concluding that there was insufficient evidence to support a conviction for attempted tampering with evidence. The Court of Criminal Appeals held that each of these justifications failed to withstand scrutiny, and therefore reversed the court of appeals. The case was remanded to the trial court to reform the judgment to reflect a conviction for the offense of attempted tampering with evidence and for a punishment hearing attendant to this post-reformation conviction. View "Thornton v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death for the robbery-murder of eighty-year-old A.B. Towery, Sr. Towery was walking back to his apartment after purchasing groceries when appellant asked to use his telephone. When Towery allowed the appellant to enter his apartment, a struggle ensued in which Towery sustained fifty-eight stab wounds and multiple blunt-force trauma injuries. Appellant was charged by indictment with committing capital murder by intentionally committing murder in the course of attempting to commit and committing robbery and burglary. In 2012, appellant filed a motion for DNA testing of Towery’s wallet, alleging that the absence of her biological material on the wallet would prove that she did not commit an act of theft against Towery (which she contended was the effective linchpin of her capital-murder conviction). The convicting court denied appellant’s motion, concluding that: (1) the evidence to be tested did not contain biological material; and (2) the appellant failed to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that she would not have been convicted of capital murder had exculpatory results been obtained through DNA testing. Appellant challenged the convicting court’s ruling on her motion for post-conviction DNA testing of Towery’s wallet. Finding no reversible error, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed. View "Holberg v. Texas" on Justia Law

Appellant was convicted of aggravated sexual assault, for which the jury sentenced him to thirty-five years in the penitentiary. The Dallas Court of Appeals reversed his conviction, however, holding that appellant was egregiously harmed by a jury charge at the guilt phase of trial that failed to require the jury to render a unanimous verdict with respect to which of two theories of aggravated sexual assault appellant’s conduct satisfied. The Court of Criminal Appeals granted the State’s petition for discretionary review in order to address the appellate court's conclusions both that the jury charge was erroneous and that any such error was egregiously harmful. Agreeing with the State's argument, the Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals. View "Jourdan v. Texas" on Justia Law