Second Court of Appeals
Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued - Week of February 24, 2025.
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.
Hance v. State, No. 02-19-00237-CR (Feb. 27, 2025) (op. on reh’g) (Birdwell, J., joined by Kerr and Walker, JJ.).
Held: In this prosecution for aggravated sexual assault of a child, the trial court reversibly erred––under the constitutional harm standard for error under Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U.S. 68, 105 S. Ct. 1087 (1985), and under the nonconstitutional harm standard for Code of Criminal Procedure Article 39.14 (Michael Morton Act) errors––by (1) cutting short a previously granted mid-trial continuance for the defendant’s expert to independently review a laptop hard drive that had been examined by law enforcement before trial (and on which purported adult incest pornography but no child pornography had been reported to be found) but that was not turned over to the prosecutors or defense until mid-trial––before the defense expert could complete the previously ordered examination––and (2) refusing to require the State to make the hard drive available to the defense for an independent examination.
Long v. Riedel, No. 02-23-00270-CV (Feb. 27, 2025) (Wallach, J., joined by Kerr and Walker, JJ.).
Held: A truck driver parked on the road next to property owned by Appellees Leah and Rodney Riedel in order to unload the Riedels’ freight. After the Riedels accepted the delivery and returned to their property, Appellant Binion Long hit the parked trailer with the truck he was driving, which was owned by Appellant 2L Custom Trucks. The acts taken by the Riedels in receiving the delivery did not give rise to a duty to Long and 2L Custom Trucks and did not constitute negligence per se.
Gourley v. State, No. 02-24-00213-CR (Feb. 6, 2025) (Womack, J., joined by Kerr and Bassel, JJ.).
Held: The trial court did not violate Appellant’s confrontation rights by allowing a forensic toxicologist to testify about the results of testing performed by the laboratory that employed him regarding the presence of drugs in Appellant’s blood even though the testifying toxicologist did not himself perform the testing. Such testimony was permitted because the toxicology report was not admitted into evidence and the testifying toxicologist had performed an independent review of the data from the laboratory’s testing and had formed his own conclusions from that data.