Maldonado v. Texas (original by judge meyers)
Annotate this CaseAppellant Anthony Maldonado was convicted of twelve counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and indecency with a child and sentenced to life in prison. The court of appeals vacated two of the convictions for indecency with a child on double jeopardy grounds and modified the judgment of the trial court. The State filed a petition for discretionary review, which the Court of Criminal Appeals granted to consider whether the subsumption theory of "Patterson v. Texas," (152 S.W.3d 88 (Tex. Crim. App. 2004)) was still valid and if so, whether a single count alleging sexual contact was subsumed by a count alleging penetration when there was evidence of multiple incidents of penetration which could have formed the basis for each count. The Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that the appellate court erred in following "Patterson," and instead should have followed "Loving v. Texas," (401 S. W.3d 642 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013)), "Patterson is properly applied when, under the facts of the case, the jury could not have found separate offenses or separate acts. [. . .] While it is true that penetration cannot physically occur in the absence of contact, the contact offenses here are not factually subsumed because there was evidence that separate and distinct indecency-by-contact offenses occurred at other times in addition to the contact associated with the penetration offenses. Thus, subsumption does not apply in this case. Here, there were many separate acts of both contact and penetration. Because the focus of sex offenses is the prohibited conduct and the legislature intended to allow separate punishments for each prohibited act, the multiple convictions do not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause."
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