Second Court of Appeals

Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued - Week of August 22, 2016.

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.

Garcia v. State, No. 02-15-00315-CR (Aug. 25, 2016) (Sudderth, J., joined by Livingston, C.J.; Dauphinot, J., concurs with opinion).

Concurrence:  Section 21.02(b) has been held constitutional but is difficult to understand.  Both its reach and its limitations are hard to pinpoint, and the specific notice due a defendant and the burden of proof placed on the prosecution are equally unclear.

Rodgers v. State, No. 02-15-00324-CR (Aug. 25, 2016) (Dauphinot, J., joined by Walker and Meier, JJ.).

Held:  Regardless of the reason he gave for detaining Appellant, the officer who detained him not only had reasonable suspicion to detain but also had probable cause to arrest Appellant because he saw Appellant commit a crime, disorderly conduct, before detaining him.  The evidence the police obtained as a result of the detention was therefore legally obtained.

In re C.J., No. 02-16-00143-CV (Aug. 26, 2016) (Livingston, C.J., joined by Dauphinot and Sudderth, JJ.).

Held:   After independently reviewing the record in this Anders parental rights termination appeal by both mother and father, we affirm the trial court’s judgment, but in accordance with the supreme court’s opinion in In re P.M., No. 15-0171, 2016 WL 1274748, at *3–4 (Tex. Apr. 1, 2016), we deny both counsels’ motions to withdraw because they do not show good cause independent from the determination that the appeal is frivolous.