Anderson v. Texas (Original)

A jury convicted appellant Sean Anderson of three counts of sexual assault and one count of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. At sentencing, the trial judge ruled that appellant's 2004 North Carolina conviction for "Taking Indecent Liberties With Children" had "substantially similar" elements to the Texas offense of "Indecency with a Child." Because of that prior North Carolina conviction, the trial judge sentenced appellant to the statutorily required life sentence for each count of sexual assault. On appeal, appellant claimed, among other things, that the trial judge erred in finding "substantial similarity" between the Texas and North Carolina offenses, but the court rejected appellant's claim and affirmed his three life sentences. The Supreme Court granted appellant's petition for discretionary review to determine whether the lower court's analysis under "Prudholm v. Texas" was: (1) incomplete because it did not explicitly include a comparison of the "impact of the elements on the seriousness of the offenses;" or (2) mistaken because the North Carolina statute encompasses a markedly different range of conduct. Upon review, the Court concluded that the two offenses did not contain elements that are substantially similar.