Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued – Week of January 11, 2010

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.

Clifton v. Walters,   No.   02-08-00389-CV  (Jan. 14, 2009)   (Meier, J., joined by Livingston and McCoy, JJ.).

Held:   Appellants lack standing as voters, citizens of Texas, and residents of Denton to sue Appellee and challenge Burroughs’s, McNeill’s, and Kamp’s eligibility for election to the city council, and Appellants lack standing as taxpayers to sue Appellee because they made no showing that they were suing to enjoin the illegal expenditure of public funds.

Stevenson v. State,   No.   02-08-00131-CR   (Jan. 14, 2010)   (McCoy, J., joined by Livingston and Meier, JJ.).

Held:   Appellant did not forfeit his legal and factual sufficiency complaint when he failed to object to the inclusion of murder as a lesser-included offense because this case did not fall within the narrow estoppel exception set out in McKinney v. State, 207 S.W.3d 366 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006). Appellant’s statements in his pro se motion for bail reduction were admissible because they were statements by a party-opponent under evidence rule 801(e)(2) and because he voluntarily included those statements in his motion, rather than being forced to disclose them under cross-examination.

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