Second Court of Appeals

Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued - Week of February 28, 2022.

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.

Thetford v. State, No. 02-18-488-CR (Mar. 3, 2022) (Sudderth, C.J., joined by Womack and Wallach, JJ.).

Held: This case comes to us on remand from the Court of Criminal Appeals “to address the sufficiency of the evidence to prove attempted murder under Rodriguez.”  Contrary to Appellant’s contentions, Rodriguez did not establish a per se rule prohibiting the State from using a failure-alleging indictment to charge or convict a defendant for an act-based offense.  Instead, Rodriguez applied the traditional Jackson v. Virginia sufficiency analysis and concluded that there was no evidence that Rodriguez’s alleged failures involved any identifiable acts meeting the criteria specified in the felony murder statute; the evidence showed only omissions. 

Applying the same traditional Jackson sufficiency analysis here, there is sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to conclude that Appellant’s attempted murder of her son “by failing to provide adequate food and/or nutrition” involved identifiable, proven “acts” that met the criteria specified in the criminal attempt statute.