Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued - Week of February 13, 2012

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.

Clay v. State, No. 02-10-00490-CR (Feb. 16, 2012) (Livingston, C.J., joined by William Brigham (Senior Justice, Retired, Sitting by Assignment); Dauphinot, J., dissents with opinion).   [Note: both opinions at the same link.]

Held: Appellant forfeited his complaint about the admissibility of out-of-state probation records. Although he objected when the State sought admission of the records, he did not object to testimony, occurring before and after his objection, about the contents of the records, and he did not obtain a running objection. Furthermore, appellant forfeited his complaint about an alleged violation of the Confrontation Clause by not objecting on that basis at trial.

Dissent: Appellant spent fifteen pages of the reporter's record objecting to the purported out-of-state probation records and the testimony about them, preserving error. The trial court reversibly erred by admitting the documents because they were inadmissible hearsay, the State laid no predicate to show their reliability and thus justify their admission under either the business record or public record exception, and the State did not otherwise satisfy its burden to prove its allegations in the petition to adjudicate.

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