Second Court of Appeals | Case Summaries

Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued – Week of May 5, 2008

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 (PDF version) can be accessed by clicking the cause number.

Sanders v. State, No. 2-07-00198-CR (May 8, 2008) (Walker, J., joined by Cayce, C.J., and Livingston, J.).: Held: Appellant was convicted of three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and raised three issues on appeal, contending that the trial court erred by: (1) admitting evidence of an extraneous offense, (2) denying his request for a limiting instruction, and (3) overruling his objection to the jury charge on punishment. First, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting evidence of an extraneous offense where Appellant traded sex with his minor step-daughter for drugs because such an offense demonstrated Appellant's state of mind toward the child and the relationship between Appellant and the child. Furthermore, considering the brief duration of the child's testimony about the incident in the midst of her protracted and graphic testimony about Appellant's acts of sexual abuse directly against her, the testimony about the extraneous offense did not unfairly prejudice Appellant. Second, even if the trial court committed error by allowing testimony about an extraneous offense without giving a contemporaneous limiting instruction, such error was made harmless by the later testimony of a witness to the extraneous offense, to which Appellant did not object. Third, based on controlling case law directly on point, Appellant's due process rights were not violated by the trial court's statutorily mandated jury instruction regarding parole and good time credits, even though Appellant was not eligible for such credits.

Goodin v. Jolliff, No. 2-06-00327-CV (May 8, 2008) (Livingston, J., joined by McCoy, J.; Cayce, C.J., concurs and dissents without opinion).: Held: The evidence was legally and factually sufficient to support the $10,000 jury award to Appellee H.V.G.C. Contracting, Inc. for loss of use of personal property; however, because there was no evidence of presentment of H.V.G.C.'s attorney's fees claim, the jury's attorney's fees award must be reversed. In addition, the trial court erred by failing to render for Appellants a declaratory judgment that the noncompete agreements they signed were unenforceable for lack of any restriction on geographic scope.