Second Court of Appeals | Case Summaries

Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued – Week of November 12, 2007

NOTE: Summaries are prepared by the court's staff attorneys and law clerks for public information only and reflect his or her interpretation alone of the facts and legal issues. The summaries are not part of the court's opinion in the case and should not be cited to, quoted, or relied upon as the opinion of the court.

Links to full text of opinions can be accessed by clicking the cause number then clicking View HTML Version of Opinion.

Thompson v. State, No. 02-06-00440-CR (Nov. 15, 2007) (Livingston J., joined by Walker and McCoy, JJ.).: Held: Appellant forfeited his complaints that the trial court abused its discretion in assessing his punishment because he failed to preserve error by either objecting at trial when his sentence was imposed or by presenting his motion for new trial to the trial court in accordance with Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 21.6.
Gurrusqueita v. State, No. 02-06-00138-CR (Nov. 15, 2007) (Dauphinot, J., joined by Livingston and Walker, JJ.).: Held: The trial court properly denied Appellant's motion to suppress because the excellent affidavit underlying the arrest warrant contains the information that the officer received, the lengths to which the officer went to corroborate information, the corroborating evidence in support of the evidence of unidentified informants, and the officer's detailed bases for claiming probable cause and therefore sufficiently sets out probable cause to arrest Appellant for the murder.
Fox v. Abdel-Hafiz, No. 02-06-00353-CV (Nov. 15, 2007) (op. on reh'g) (Holman, J., joined by Cayce, C.J., and Gardner, J.).: Held: In this interlocutory appeal in a defamation action brought by Appellee, an FBI special agent, there was no evidence of actual malice by Appellants (media defendants) involving statements made by them about Appellee. Summary judgment is rendered that Appellee take nothing on his defamation claims.
Abdel-Hafiz v. ABC, No. 02-06-00244-CV (Nov. 15, 2007) (Holman, J., joined by Cayce, C.J., and Gardner, J.).: Held: There was no evidence of actual malice by Appellees (media defendants) involving alleged defamatory statements made by them about Appellant, an FBI special agent. Also, the trial court properly granted special appearances for two individual nonresident media defendants because the court did not have either specific or general jurisdiction over them.