Casanova v. Texas (Original)
Annotate this CaseThe appellant was convicted pursuant to an indictment charging him with the offense of possession of cocaine in an amount less than one gram, a state-jail felony, and the jury assessed his punishment at one year's confinement. On appeal, he argued that the trial court erred in failing to submit a jury instruction under Article 38.14 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, which requires the jury to find that the testimony of the accomplice witness was corroborated before it could rely on that testimony for a conviction. Although the appellant did not object in the trial court to the absence of such an instruction, he argued on appeal that his conviction should nevertheless be overturned because, under "Almanza v. Texas," he suffered egregious harm from the defective jury charge that lacked an accomplice witness instruction. The appellant also argued, alternatively, that he should be acquitted because the evidence was legally insufficient to corroborate the testimony of the accomplice witness. In an unpublished opinion, the Eighth Court of Appeals reversed the appellant's conviction. The court of appeals agreed with the appellant that the lack of an accomplice-witness instruction egregiously harmed him. Additionally, the court of appeals sua sponte noted that the trial court had neglected to read the jury charge out loud to the jury as required by Articles 36.14 and 36.16 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Although the appellant neither objected to this second deficiency at trial, nor even raised it as a point of error on appeal, the court of appeals recognized it as jury-charge error that is also subject to "Almanza" analysis and found it also to be egregiously harmful. The court of appeals failed to reach the appellant's legal sufficiency claim, even though if successful, such a claim would have resulted in his acquittal. The Supreme Court granted the State's petition for discretionary review in order to examine the court of appeals's finding of egregious harm with respect to the two jury charge errors. Finding merit to appellant's arguments on appeal, the Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals.
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