Second Court of Appeals

Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued - Week of July 24, 2017.

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.

Busby v. Harvey, No. 02-16-00311-CV (July 27, 2017) (Livingston, C.J., joined by Gabriel and Pittman, JJ.).

Held:  The trial court did not abuse its discretion by denying Appellants’ motion to disqualify Appellees’ counsel on account of a brief conversation that counsel had with one of the Appellants before counsel began representing Appellees.  Appellants failed to establish actual prejudice arising from counsel’s representation of Appellees.

Golliday v. State, No. 02-15-00416-CR (July 27, 2017) (en banc on reh’g) (Lee Ann Dauphinot (Senior Justice, Retired, Sitting by Assignment), joined by Meier, Sudderth, and Pittman, JJ., and Anne Gardner (Senior Justice, Retired, Sitting by Assignment); Livingston, C.J., dissenting with opinion, joined by Walker, Gabriel, and Kerr, JJ.).

Held:  In this “he-said, she said” case, the trial court’s exclusion of evidence offered to impeach the complainant and to support the defensive theory that sexual intercourse was consensual (or that at least a reasonable person would have thought so) violated Appellant’s constitutional rights to due process, to present a defense, and to confront his accusers.

Dissent:  Under well-settled error-preservation principles and under binding decisions from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and from this court that apply those principles, Appellant did not preserve his constitutional complaints for our review.  We should not reverse Appellant’s conviction on a ground that the trial court never considered.