Second Court of Appeals | Case Summaries

Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued – Week of October 20, 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.

S. County Mut. Ins. v. Surety Bank, N.A., No. 02-07-00185-CV (Oct. 23, 2008) (Cayce, C.J., joined by Holman and McCoy, JJ.).: Held: An insurance company breaches its contract with its insured when the insurance company fails to return all unearned premiums to a premium finance company that, through compliance with all applicable statutes and regulations for premium financing arrangements, has a secured interest in all unearned premiums that become refundable upon cancellation of the policy.

Stringer v. State, No. 02-05-00111-CR (Oct. 23, 2008) (op. on remand) (Walker, J., joined by Holman, J.; Dauphinot, J., dissents with opinion). [Note: Both opinions are at the same link in one document.]: Held: Because Appellant placed his criminal history at issue and accepted the benefits of the order requiring a presentence investigation report (PSI), he forfeited or is estopped from asserting a Confrontation Clause objection to the statutorily required Adult Felony History portion of his PSI. Our holding is limited to cases in which a defendant pleads guilty to a felony, files an application for probation, and asserts a Confrontation Clause objection to a statutorily required portion of the PSI. We need not address—as the dissent implies—the constitutionality of the PSI statute; no constitutional challenge to the statute was raised in the trial court or on appeal.; Dissent: The trial court reversibly erred by admitting during the punishment phase the testimonial portions of the PSI accusing Appellant of extraneous acts of misconduct because (1) Appellant preserved his confrontation objection in the trial court; (2) Appellant‘s requesting the PSI did not waive his objections to evidence later found therein; (3) Appellant had no duty to avail himself of state statutory remedies instead of asserting his federal constitutional right to confrontation; (4) Appellant did not waive his constitutional right to confrontation by applying for community supervision; (5) Appellant did not waive or forfeit his objections to the inadmissible portions of the PSI, nor is he estopped from asserting them, merely because he properly did not object to the admissible portions of the PSI; and (6) the State emphasized the extraneous acts in its closing argument, causing harm.