Second Court of Appeals

Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued - Week of June 8, 2015.

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.

Ex parte S.B.M, No. 02-13-00360-CV (June 11, 2015) (Walker, J., joined by Gardner, J.; Dauphinot, J., concurs without opinion).

Held:  Because the evidence admitted at the expunction hearing established that the statute of limitations for the sexual assault offense that S.B.M. had been arrested for had expired prior to the filing of S.B.M.'s petition for expunction, and because S.B.M. established each statutory condition necessary to obtain an expunction under article 55.01(a)(2)(B) of the code of criminal procedure, the trial court abused its discretion by denying S.B.M.'s petition for expunction.

Swilley v. State, No. 02-13-00569-CR (June 11, 2015) (Gardner, J., joined by Livingston, C.J., and Gabriel, J.).

Held:  The evidence was sufficient to convict Appellant of the offense of cruelty to an animal where, although no one saw Appellant shoot the stray dog with a crossbow, one witness saw Appellant walking with a crossbow only moments after the stray dog was shot with a bolt from a crossbow. Regarding references to an extraneous offense in a video, Appellant waived his complaint by not objecting to the video when it was admitted into evidence. Appellant's motion in limine did not preserve the error either. Finally, Appellant complained that the trial court only compounded the error by instructing the jury to disregard the extraneous-offense references in the video. Appellant waived this complaint as well by not objecting.

Coffman v. State, No. 02-14-00248-CR (June 11, 2015) (Dauphinot, J., joined by Gabriel and Sudderth, JJ.).

Held:  The record is not adequate to support Appellant's contention that trial counsel was ineffective for allowing him to plead true to allegations in the State's petition to proceed to adjudication without first fully investigating and retaining an expert to evaluate his mental abilities when experts disagreed about Appellant's competence to understand deferred adjudication community supervision and revocation proceedings and he had already pled guilty to the offense. We note that habeas relief may still be available.