Daugherty v. Texas (Original)
Annotate this CaseAppellant Tonya Daughtery signed a construction-service contract with a general contractor to build out office space for her and her husband's window-tinting company. Appellant wrote a $1,657 check as a deposit. The rest of the approximately $48,000 contract price was not due until the project was completed. At that time, however, appellant no longer had the money and gave the contractor an "insufficient funds" check. A jury convicted her of theft of services for obtaining the contractor's service by deception when she gave him the insufficient-funds check after he had completed the build-out. The court of appeals reversed the jury's verdict and rendered a judgment of acquittal because it determined that the evidence was legally insufficient to support the conviction. The Supreme Court granted the State's petition to decide whether the failure to prove that appellant secured the performance of the contract with a "worthless check" was merely an "immaterial variance" or whether the State failed to prove the essential element that an act of deception secured performance of the contractor's services. Upon review, the Court concluded that the State failed to prove the offense of theft of service by deception, so it affirmed the court of appeals.
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