Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Steele v. State
No. PD-0427-24 12/18/24
Issue:
Could the defendant raise for the first time on appeal an argument that the trial court should not have him to pay $100 to a local women’s shelter as a condition of his probation?
Holding:
No. The Court noted that when a defendant accepts a condition of probation, he waives any complaint if he fails to object at the time the condition(s) is imposed. The Court concluded that “a condition of probation is subject to an absolute prohibition only when … it is ‘intolerable’ and ‘antithetical to justice,’ i.e., it is the type of condition that no Texas state court could ever impose as a condition of probation.” Because payment to a women’s shelter is neither of those things, defendant waived his complaint by failing to object at the time the condition was imposed. Read opinion.
Concurrence (Yeary, J.):
“I agree with the majority’s bottom line—Appellant cannot complain for the first time on appeal about the condition requiring him to pay $100 to a women’s shelter. But, because the majority does not explicitly utilize Marin’s lexicon, and, like Speth, seems to treat the right as though it should be considered to fall within Marin category two, I can only concur with its result.” Read concurrence.
Commentary:
Because the majority opinion deals with preservation of error, this decision may be of interest only to appellate prosecutors. In that respect, it is not clear how helpful this decision will be in the future because—as noted in Judge Yeary’s concurring opinion—the court does not engage in an analysis under Marin. It is possible that—with this decision—the majority has created a new way of analyzing probation conditions that are allegedly absolutely prohibited. For the type of probation condition that would not require an objection to the trial court, the majority offered as an example the probation condition in Gutierrez in which the court held that a defendant could raise an objection for the first time on appeal to a probation condition that forced the defendant to gain legal status in the United States or leave the country. Unless the probation condition is something that outrageous, a defendant will have to object to the probation condition at trial to raise it on appeal.
Bradshaw v. State
No. PD-0577-23 12/18/24
Issue:
Should a defendant be required to pay $133 in court costs because that was the statutory amount when he committed the offense, or should the court costs be $185 because that was the statutory amount when he was convicted of the offense?
Holding:
The defendant is required to pay the amount authorized by statute at the time of conviction. The Court resolved the apparent conflict between Texas Local Government Code §133.102(a)(1) and Texas Government Code §51.608. The Court attempted to harmonize the two statutes, noting that §51.068 of the Government Code states: “the amount of a court cost imposed on the defendant in a criminal proceeding must be the amount established under the law in effect on the date the defendant is convicted of the offense” (emphasis in original). The Court found this statute “trumps the 2020 ‘Transition and Effective Date’ clause in the Cost Act.” For visual learners, the Court included two flow charts to help untangle the statutes. Because the defendant was convicted after the court cost increase, the defendant’s court costs are $185. Read opinion.
Concurrence (Yeary, J.):
“Ultimately, however, I do not believe the two provisions are as irredeemably incompatible as the Court seems to think. It is true that both Section 51.608, and Section 5.01 of the 2019 amendment to Section 133.102 (the ‘Transition and Effective Date’ provision), specifically target criminal court costs. But, while Section 51.608 is limited in its application to criminal court costs, the ‘Transition and Effective Date’ provision also applies to fees and fines. And, more importantly, Section 133.102 includes court costs for ‘a nonjailable misdemeanor offense, including a criminal violation of a municipal ordinance,’ while Section 51.608 is limited to court costs ‘collected by the clerk of a district, county, or statutory county court’—which handle felonies and more serious misdemeanors. Thus, the ‘Transition and Effective Date’ provision to the 2019 amendment to Section 133.102 has some additional application that is not negated by Section 51.608. To that extent, at least, the two statutes may be read in pari materia to give tangible application to both.” Read concurrence.
Commentary:
This is a very technical exercise in statutory construction. Because it deals with a very narrow class of defendants—those who committed an offense before January 1, 2020 and were convicted after January 1, 2020—it seems doubtful that this decision will have much future value.
Texas Courts of Appeals
Ex parte Huell
No. 02-24-00315-CR 12/12/24
Issue:
Is Penal Code §46.04, Texas’s felon-in-possession statute, on its face an unconstitutional restriction on the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms?
Holding:
No. A facial challenge to a law requires the defendant to show that there are no circumstances that exist under which the law is valid. The Court reviewed the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Heller, Bruen, and the recent Rahimi case. All three Supreme Court cases make it clear that “the Second Amendment does not prohibit the government’s restriction of firearm possession by convicted felons.” Thus §46.04 is not facially unconstitutional. Read opinion.
Commentary:
In this decision, the court of appeals did not conduct a historical analysis of laws that may have prohibited felons from possessing firearms. Rather, based upon language from the leading Supreme Court decisions, the court relied upon a presumption that our felon-in-possession-of-a-firearm law was valid. Prosecutors should keep watch over these Second Amendment decisions to see if any court provides an argument that could support a Second Amendment challenge in the future. For example, there is language in one of the (unpublished) decisions upon which the court of appeals relied that could arguably restrict the Second Amendment prohibition to dangerous felons only. The Supreme Court case law, however, has not drawn a distinction between dangerous and non-dangerous felonies, but instead focused upon whether a defendant’s status as a felon revealed that he was law-abiding.
Gutierrez v. State
No. 13-24-00208-CR 12/16/24
Issue:
Is Penal Code §20.05(a)(1)(A), part of the Smuggling of Persons law, unconstitutional as applied to the defendant because it is preempted by federal immigration law?
Holding:
Yes. The defendant brought her claim under a preemption-as-applied challenge. Conflict preemption occurs when it is impossible for a private party to obey both federal and state law or where the state law acts as a barrier to the objectives of the U.S. Congress. The Court held that by the passage of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) the federal government had left no room for State action in the field of immigration, and the statute in question is preempted by federal law under the Sixth Amendment’s Supremacy Clause as applied to the defendant in this case. Read opinion.
Dissent (Silva, J.):
“Texas need not wait on the federal government to protect those within its boundaries from criminal actors who violate state criminal laws, nor must Texas acquiesce to whatever level of punishment that federal officials determine is appropriate for federal offenses that overlap with state criminal laws. Texas has the right to enact and enforce §20.05(a)(1)(A)—a neutral criminal statute applicable to all who smuggle, and all who are smuggled, regardless of nationality—to prevent criminal conduct that Texas determines should be prohibited and to punish such conduct in accordance with Texas’s priorities. Section 20.05(a)(1)(A) is not federally preempted by 8 U.S.C. §1324, which governs different criminal conduct prohibited by a different sovereign with its own punishment scheme in accord with its own priorities.” Read dissent.
Commentary:
The constitutional challenge raised in this case is an as-applied challenge, as opposed to a facial challenge. That means that, in this case, the defendant claimed that, as applied to her particular case, the state penal statute was preempted by federal law. Because this decision has declared the application of the state penal statute to be preempted by federal law, and because there is a dissenting opinion, prosecutors should expect this decision to be reviewed by the Court of Criminal Appeals (assuming that the court of appeals does not overturn the decision on a motion for rehearing). That is not to say that the decision is wrong. It is very thorough. In the meantime, prosecutors wishing to go forward with a smuggling prosecution under this particular subsection of the statute—§20.05(a)(1)(A)—should read this decision very carefully—especially pages 14 to 16—to determine if there any distinctions with the facts of this particular case.
Royal v. State
No. 11-23-00147-CR & -00148-CR 12/12/24
Issue:
Does espousing or promoting sovereign-citizen beliefs suggest or indicate that a defendant is incompetent to stand trial?
Holding:
No. “This old tune that is comprised of inaccurate case law quotes, self-serving readings and interpretations of the United States Constitution, and proffered definitions from outdated legal dictionaries has been summarily rejected by federal and state courts alike. Courts have further acknowledged that although sovereign citizens’ particular brand of obstinacy may arguably promote an initial suggestion of incompetency, they ‘typically have the capacity to understand criminal proceedings and assist an attorney.’” Read opinion.
Commentary:
This decision will be very helpful for prosecutors who are confronted with claims that a defendant’s unusual courtroom behavior leads towards a determination that he is incompetent to stand trial. In this case, the defendant had the typical legal theories and refusal to recognize authority that are commonly found with “sovereign citizens” or other similar ideologies. But this defendant still understood the adversarial nature of the proceedings and was able to participate. The defendant also understood the allegations against him and his ability to mount a defense to the charges. The defendant did not challenge the voluntariness of his desire to represent himself, but the court of appeals noted that the trial judge fully admonished the defendant as to the dangers and disadvantages of self-representation. These types of cases can be quite difficult, so this decision will be vital in helping to persuade a trial judge of the correct approach to take. “Sovereign citizen” cases and the like should be distinguished from similar cases—like Turner v. State cited in the court’s opinion—where a defendant has a recognized mental illness that affects his ability to understand the proceedings, consult with (standby) counsel, or mounting a defense.
Announcement
This will be the last case summary of 2024, but we will return in January 2025. TDCAA hopes you and your families have a wonderful and safe holiday season!