Second Court of Appeals

Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued - Week of February 26, 2018.

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.

Dooley v. State, No. 02-16-00212-CR (Mar. 1, 2018) (Sudderth, C.J., joined by Kerr and Pittman, JJ.).

Held:  Evidence of the side effects of a medication might be admissible in a criminal case if it tends to negate the applicable mens rea.  But the expert testimony presented in this case to the possible influence of Chantix did not do that—instead, it provided a possible excuse for his irrational and impulsive behavior of shooting his wife to death while she was on the phone with 911.  As such, the expert’s testimony was inadmissible.

Dunning v. State, No. 02-17-00166-CR (Mar. 1, 2018) (Walker, J., joined by Meier and Kerr, JJ.).

Held:  We hold that Dunning established a reasonable probability that he would not likely have been convicted had the post-conviction DNA testing been available at the time of trial.  Therefore, we sustain Dunning’s sole point of error, vacate the trial court’s May 17, 2017 “not favorable” finding, and remand this case to the trial court for an entry of a finding that had the post-conviction DNA test results attained by Dunning been available during the trial of the offense, it is reasonably probable that Dunning would not have been convicted.