Court of Criminal Appeals

Maciel v. State

No. PD-0458-23                               5/29/24

Issue:

Was there “some harm” in the trial court’s omission of a necessity defensive jury instruction?

Holding:

Yes. “Appellant admitted to attempting to operate the vehicle, and the jury could have found that she did so while intoxicated. Because the trial court refused to submit Appellant’s requested necessity instruction, the jury had no alternative to consider, and thus determine, whether her conduct was justified under the circumstances. Given the evidence in the record that supports Appellant’s justification, we are persuaded that the jury should have been able to make that determination.” Read opinion.

Commentary:

Though this opinion does not explicitly say so, the takeaway here is that if the evidence adduced at trial is sufficient to raise a defensive justification instruction, the omission of that defensive instruction over the defendant’s request or objection is practically guaranteed to result in “some harm” to the defendant on appeal. Though whether the omission of a defensive instruction will be harmful is primarily a concern for appellate practitioners, trial prosecutors should nonetheless take heed of these sorts of opinions and exercise caution in opposing defense requests for jury instructions. Certainly not all defensive instructions will be warranted or proper, but, given that trial prosecutors must decide whether to oppose such instructions without the benefit of the trial transcript, it is imperative that they consider the issues very carefully.

Texas Supreme Court

Goldstein v. Sabatino

No. 22-0678                       5/24/24

Issue:

Is “territorial jurisdiction”—a criminal concept—a jurisdictional requirement underlying a district court’s power to issue a civil protective order under Chapter 7B of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure?

Holding:

No. The parties had previously been in a dating relationship in Massachusetts. Three years after their breakup, Sabatino began contacting Goldstein through texts and phone calls informing her that he had found sexually explicit photographs and conversations between Goldstein and a former boyfriend on a cellphone that Goldstein had lent to Sabatino while they were dating. Worried about potential blackmail, Goldstein served Sabatino with a cease-and-desist letter and was granted a protective order against Sabatino in a Massachusetts court. After Sabatino violated the protective order, Goldstein moved to Harris County and filed a protective order against him in a Harris County district court. While nothing alleged in the protective order hearing took place in Texas, the district court granted a lifetime protective order against Sabatino. The First Court of Appeals dismissed the case, ruling that the district court lacked territorial jurisdiction over Sabatino.

The Supreme Court, however, found that “Chapter 7B proceedings are civil matters. Thus, they do not implicate the ‘territorial jurisdiction’ required in criminal proceedings. Stated another way, as in any civil case, a court presiding over a Chapter 7B proceeding must have ‘subject matter jurisdiction over the controversy and personal jurisdiction over the parties.’ The court of appeals erred in imposing a third, nonwaivable territorial limitation on the court’s jurisdiction that applies only in criminal cases.” But even though the Court found that there was no territorial jurisdiction requirement for a Chapter 7B protective order, the district court did not have the required personal jurisdiction over Sabatino. “Goldstein does not point to any purposeful contacts that Sabatino made with Texas—in fact, she points to no contact at all. The predicate conduct underlying the protective order took place entirely in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and most of it took place while both Goldstein and Sabatino were Massachusetts residents.” Thus, the district court lacked personal jurisdiction over Sabatino and the court of appeals’ dismissal of the case was proper. Read opinion.

Commentary:

The Court’s holding that the criminal-law concept of territorial jurisdiction is not applicable in civil cases—and, thus, “is not a jurisdictional bar to a Texas court’s consideration of a civil protective-order application”—should be useful to prosecutors who work with protective orders, since the conduct giving rise to these proceedings can occur across state lines or in another state entirely. Keep in mind, though, that acquiring personal jurisdiction over a non-resident defendant could be problematic, as occurred here, if all the conduct underpinning the protective-order application occurs outside of Texas and the defendant has not otherwise “purposefully availed” him or herself of the “privilege of conducting activities” within Texas. Beyond these points, if you’ve missed discussions concerning International Shoe since leaving law school, perhaps this case will provide some comfortable, nostalgic reading for you.

Texas Courts of Appeals

State v. Villarreal

No. 13-23-00054-CR                       5/23/24

Issue:

Did the trial court err in granting the defendant’s motion to dismiss predicated on spoliation and an alleged violation of Arts. 2.1397 and 39.14?

Holding:

Yes. The Court first examined the spoliation finding. In the context of a criminal proceeding, the governing caselaw on evidence that is no longer in the State’s possession is Arizona v. Youngblood, 488 U.S. 51, 55 (1988). To satisfy the Youngblood standard, a defendant has the burden to show that State lost or destroyed the evidence and did so in bad faith. Here, the defendant “argued that the State failed to properly maintain its case management system, which resulted in the intentional, negligent, or reckless loss or destruction of evidence. The State’s inability to maintain a proper case management system and find evidence—however problematic—is not evidence of bad faith where it remains undisputed that the State does not know what happened to the lost evidence … Moreover, there was no evidence that establishes the State or any of its actors specifically knew the nature of the missing evidence—i.e., that the evidence was favorable to [the defendant]—thereby indicating a possible improper motive.” Because there was no evidence of bad faith, the trial court erred in granting the dismissal with prejudice on a spoliation basis. 

On the issue of an alleged violation of Code of Criminal Procedure Art. 2.1397, the Court concluded that “article 2.1397 is not a mechanism for dismissal, [therefore] a dismissal predicated on an Article 2.1397 violation is error.”

On the alleged violation of Art. 39.14, the Court stated, “To be clear, the evidence must be within the State’s possession, custody, or control for purposes of an Article 39.14 compliance challenge. … The parties agree that the complained-of lost evidence here is not in the State’s possession, custody, or control. Therefore, in accordance with our precedent, dismissal under Article 39.14 was error” (citation omitted). Read opinion.

Commentary:

This is a great case for the State because it: (1) provides a helpful distinction between spoliation claims brought under Youngblood (where the State no longer has possession or control over evidence because it has been lost or destroyed) and disclosure-violation claims brought under Brady and Art. 39.14 (where the State still has possession or control over the evidence, but has not timely disclosed it); and (2) discusses what does (and does not) constitute “bad faith” on the part of the State in the Youngblood context. In that realm, misjudgment, gross negligence, poor organization, or sloppy file or case management systems that result in the inadvertent loss or destruction of evidence are not admirable, but they are also not “bad faith” that requires dismissal of a charging instrument.

Additionally, because there are few cases that address the consequences for noncompliance with Art. 2.1397 (which places an affirmative duty on the law enforcement agency that files a case with a prosecuting office to produce all information that is discoverable under Art. 39.14(a)), if you have a situation where the defendant seeks relief based on a supposed violation of Art. 2.1397, recall this case.  Here, the Thirteenth Court of Appeals follows its own lead from Black v. State, No. 13-22-00147-CR, 2023 WL 7204472, at *7-8 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi–Edinburg Nov. 2, 2023, pet. ref’d) (mem. op., not designated for publication), and finds that, just as suppression of evidence or the issuance of a new trial are not appropriate remedies, “neither [is] the drastic remedy of a dismissal with prejudice.”

Announcement

New Release of Expunction & Nondisclosure (2024)

With changes to the numbering scheme of expunction laws on the horizon (rewriting Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 55 into new Chapter 55A, effective Jan. 1, 2025), the 2024 edition of Expunction & Nondisclosure is essential. Appellate prosecutor Andrea Westerfeld (Ellis County and District Attorney’s Office) has made the rules and procedures for expunction and nondisclosure easy to understand, with checklists, sample petitions and orders (all included on a CD) to help simplify the process. The 2024 edition incorporates the newest statutory requirements for expunctions (including expunctions for weapons offenses) and covers all types of nondisclosures as well as caselaw updates for both. To order your copy, click here.