Second Court of Appeals | Case Summaries

Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued – Week of January 12, 2009

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.

Edwards v. State, No. 02-08-00025-CR (Jan. 15, 2009) (Walker, J., joined by Cayce, C.J.; Dauphinot, J., dissents with opinion). [Note: Both opinions are at the same link in one document.]: Held: Edwards did not meet his burden of showing by a preponderance of the evidence that his counsel's representation—specifically, her failure to place expert testimony before the jury that Edwards was insane at the time of the present offense—fell below the standard of prevailing professional norms in light of the strong presumption of reasonable professional assistance and in the absence of any opportunity for defense counsel to explain her motives.; Dissent: No defensive strategy explains a defense lawyer's telling the jury that the defendant's defense is insanity and then calling no expert in support of the defense but, rather, calling a witness or witnesses to defeat the defense.

Bracken v. State, No. 02-06-00361-CR (Jan. 15, 2009) (Gardner, J., joined by Cayce, C.J.; Dauphinot, J., dissents with opinion). [Note: Both opinions are at the same link in one document.]: Held: In this DWI prosecution, the trial court did not err by denying Appellant's motion to suppress because the arresting officer had a reasonable suspicion that Appellant was intoxicated when the officer saw Appellant's vehicle cross the center line by half a vehicle's width, cross or drive on the fog line, and weave back and forth within his lane over the course of several miles, and the objective, physical evidence—the officer's in-car video—supported his testimony. With regard to the dissent's contention that Appellant cannot appeal the trial court's ruling on his motion to suppress because he did not obtain a written ruling, a written order is not a jurisdictional prerequisite to a defendant's appeal from the denial of a motion to suppress, and neither this court nor any other Texas court has ever held otherwise; our holding in State v. Cox is limited to appeals by the State from the grant of a motion to suppress.; Dissent: Under State v. Cox, we have no jurisdiction to address Appellant's suppression point because there is no written order denying his motions to suppress. Alternatively, in reaching the merits of the point, the majority does not address the deference we should afford a trial court's implicit findings when objective, physical evidence conflicts with testimony on which the findings are based.

Bundy v. State, No. 02-07-00189-CR (Jan. 15, 2009) (Livingston, J., joined by McCoy, J.; Dauphinot, J., dissents with opinion). [Note: Both opinions are at the same link in one document.]: Held: Appellant did not demonstrate reversible error in his murder conviction because (1) he failed to preserve his complaint about the exclusion of evidence of the deceased's violent character, and such evidence was also inadmissible when the victim was unambiguously the first aggressor; (2) he was not entitled to a jury charge regarding apparent danger because the charge correctly tracked the penal code standards relating to self defense, deadly force, and reasonable belief; (3) the jury rendered a unanimous verdict when it convicted appellant of murder through one application paragraph, though the jury charge contained different statutory murder theories, because murder is a result-focused offense and the variant means to commit it do not comprise separate offenses; and (4) the evidence presented at trial was factually sufficient to impliedly rebut appellant's self-defense theory.; Dissent: For the purposes of a unanimous verdict, intentional murder and murder that occurs when a person intended to cause substantial risk of life or serious bodily injury, in any of its forms, and committed an act clearly dangerous to human life that caused death are different offenses with unique elements, not alternate manner and means of committing the same offense.