Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Williams v. State
No. PD-0099-23 1/10/24
Issue:
Is the State required to elect between alternative statutory methods of committing an offense alleged in the indictment?
Holding:
No. Including all six manners and means of committing aggravated promotion of prostitution (Penal Code §43.04) gave the defendant sufficient notice of the charges against him. Distinguishing State v. Ross, 573 S.W.3d 817 (Tex. Crim. App. 2019) and Ferguson v. State, 622 S.W.3d 846 (Tex. Crim. App. 1981), the Court concluded that “[a]s long as the charging instrument specifies all the manner and means upon which the State is permitted to rely, there is no notice problem.” Read opinion.
Dissent (Yeary, J.):
“I would not resolve this important question of statutory construction by assuming, simply because Appellant used the unfortunate words ‘manner and means’ at trial and before the court of appeals, that Section 43.04(a) specifies the manners and means of committing aggravated promotion of prostitution, rather than the elements of six distinct offenses. To resolve the issue that we hoped to review in this case without first addressing this important predicate legal issue risks resolving this case incorrectly and, more importantly, muddling our jurisprudence.” Read dissent.
Dissent (Newell, J., joined by Walker, J.):
“It has long been the case that in most cases, a charging instrument that tracks the relevant statutory text will provide adequate notice to the accused. But tracking the language of the statue may be insufficient if the statutory language is not ‘completely descriptive of an offense.’ If the prohibited conduct is statutorily defined to include more than one manner or means of commission, the State must, upon timely request, allege the particular manner or means it seeks to establish. And while I agree that the State is entitled to prosecute a criminal defendant under multiple different theories for the same crime, the State can only do so if it believes it has evidence to support those theories. If the State does not believe it has evidence to support every theory alleged, it must elect which theories it thinks it can prove. Under the Court’s holding today, the State no longer needs to be sure of the facts of the case before charging every possible theory.” Read dissent.
Commentary:
When a statute lists multiple manners and means of committing an offense, the State is required to identify which manner and means it intends to prove at trial to furnish the defendant with sufficient notice of the charged offense and permit him to prepare a defense. However, as this case instructs, you are not required to restrict the charging instrument to only one or two of the statute’s multiple manners and means; instead, you may (and should) allege as many of the manners and means that you believe the evidence may prove, and you may even allege all of them. Alleging more manners and means, not fewer, is important to prevent an evidentiary sufficiency problem down the road and is realistic, too, given that the nature of the evidence and case may change between when you file the charging instrument and the conclusion of trial, where evidence and witness testimony may have varied from what you anticipated. Alleging more manners and means would also not result in an “over pleading” problem because the State can abandon any manners and means that are alleged but not ultimately proved at trial and, thus, prevent them from being submitted to the jury.
Texas Court of Appeals
Tolentino v. State
No. 01-22-00442-CR 1/9/24
Issue:
Were the defendant’s due process and fair trial rights violated when he was denied an interpreter in his native language, Nahuatl, and objected to having a Spanish interpreter? (Nahuatl is an indigenous language spoken in Mexico.)
Holding:
Yes. Defendants must be able to sufficiently understand the proceedings against them and assist in their own defense. The Court found that the record and evidence showed that the defendant spoke minimal, broken Spanish and that the defendant’s attorney had to communicate in Spanish with the defendant’s brother who would then translate into Nahuatl for the defendant. Because the defendant did not have an adequate interpreter, the trial was fundamentally unfair. Read opinion.
Commentary:
The constitutional rights to confrontation and due process, as well as Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 38.30(a), require the trial court to appoint an interpreter to translate the proceedings for a non-English-speaking defendant. However, the defendant is entitled only to interpretive services that are “constitutionally adequate” to ensure that the defendant is able to understand and participate in the proceedings—not the “best” possible interpretive services, or the interpretive services of the defendant’s preferred choice (e.g., if the defendant speaks French and German, but would prefer a German interpreter because he is more comfortable with German).
There was no question in this case that the defendant required an interpreter; rather, the parties disputed only whether a Spanish interpreter was sufficient. In concluding that a Spanish interpreter was inadequate, the appellate court minimizes the evidence that the defendant could communicate effectively in Spanish—namely, the DWI video—because the defendant’s Spanish responses in the video were mumbled or broken at times. But were those aspects fairly attributable to an inadequate understanding of Spanish, or were they simply a product of the defendant’s intoxicated state? And if reasonable minds might differ on the reason for the defendant’s broken Spanish—either because he truly did not sufficiently understand the language or because he was intoxicated—did the trial court abuse its discretion in determining that a Spanish interpreter was inadequate? Perhaps we’ll find out if the State pursues a petition for discretionary review in the Court of Criminal Appeals, and the CCA decides to weigh in.