Week of June 22, 2026
Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued - Week of June 22, 2026.
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.
Castro v. State, No. 02-25-00419-CR (June 25, 2026) (Sudderth, C.J., joined by Birdwell and Bassel, JJ.).
Held: Although Article 37.07, Section 2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides a statutory right to jury-assessed punishment, that right applies to a defendant only if he (1) pleads not guilty before a jury and (2) takes the necessary procedural steps to invoke his statutory right. To the extent that this court has implied that a defendant has an Article 37.07 right to jury-assessed punishment even if he waives a jury at the guilt–innocence phase, we disapprove of that implication. And to the extent that our sister courts have held that a defendant’s Article 37.07 right is waivable only, we disagree. Here, Appellant did not have a statutory right to jury-assessed punishment because he (1) waived his right to a jury at the guilt–innocence phase and (2) did not take the necessary procedural steps to invoke Article 37.07.
Hall v. State, Nos. 02-25-00171-CR, 02-25-00172-CR (June 25, 2026) (Wallach, J., joined by Sudderth, C.J., and Walker, J.).
Held: In an otherwise frivolous appeal of two separate judgments, the court modified the trial court’s judgments to delete fines that were not orally pronounced when the trial court revoked Appellant’s community supervision, adjudicated him guilty, and sentenced him. In one case, the court also deleted $2,560 that Appellant had been ordered to pay as reimbursement for attorney’s fees because nothing in the record showed that Appellant had the ability to pay attorney’s fees when he entered his plea or when his guilt was adjudicated. The court also deleted $4,718 in reparations where the record did not provide support for the reparation award or the specific amount. But the court upheld a $415 reparation award in the other case because the record in that case supported it. A prematurely assessed $25 time-payment fee was struck without prejudice; the court made clear that the time-payment fee could be assessed if Appellant failed to timely pay the remaining court costs that he owed.