Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued – Week of February 28, 2011

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.

CTL/Thompson Tex., LLC v. Morrison Homes,   No 02-10-00259-CV    (Mar. 3, 2011)   (Walker, J., joined by Dauphinot and McCoy, JJ.)

Held:    The trial court's July 6, 2010 order denying Appellants CTL/Thompson Texas, LLC, Michael L. Lester, P.E., Che-Hung Tsai, Ph.D., P.E., and Srikanth Dinakaran, P.E.'s second motion to dismiss Morrison Homes's claims is not an appealable order, and consequently, the appeal of that order is dismissed; additionally, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by denying Appellants' motion to dismiss Appellee Sheffield Development Company, Inc.'s cross-claims because Appellee Sheffield was not required to file its own certificate of merit but could rely on and incorporate the certificate of merit filed by the plaintiffs.

Wise v. State,    No. 02-09-00267-CR    (Mar. 3, 2011)   (McCoy, J., joined by Meier, J.; Livingston, C.J., concurs and dissents with opinion).  [Note: Both opinions are at the same link in one document.]

Held:   The trial court did not err by denying Appellant's motion to suppress. The affidavit supporting the search warrant contained sufficient details to allow a magistrate to reasonably conclude that the police had probable cause to search Appellant's computers for inappropriate pictures of the underage complainant. However, because the State failed to prove Appellant intentionally or knowingly possessed pornographic images depicting children other than complainant, the evidence was insufficient to support the jury's verdict for possession of child pornography relative to those images.

Dissent/Concurrence:   Under a proper application of evidentiary sufficiency principles, the circumstantial evidence is sufficient to support all of Appellant's convictions for possession of child pornography. The evidence enabled a rational jury to find that Appellant intentionally or knowingly possessed the illegal images that the police found in the free space of his computer.

« Return to Case Summaries Home Page «