Rabb v. Texas (original by judge meyers)
Annotate this CaseAppellant Richard Rabb was charged with the offense of tampering with evidence by destruction. At trial, the court found Appellant guilty and sentenced him to six years’ imprisonment. Appellant appealed, asserting that the evidence was legally insufficient to support his conviction and the court of appeals agreed. The State then filed a petition for discretionary review, which the Court of Criminal Appeals granted. After review, the Court agreed with the court of appeals’ decision, but remanded the case to the court of appeals to have it determine whether Appellant’s conviction should have been reformed to a conviction on the lesser-included offense of attempted tampering with evidence under "Thornton v. Texas," (425 S.W.3d 289 (2014)). The court of appeals found that it could not reform Appellant’s conviction because he lacked the specific intent to destroy the evidence. The State filed a another petition for discretionary review, which was granted, in order to consider whether the court of appeals erred in its application of "Thornton" and in choosing not to reform the judgment to the lesser-included offense of attempted tampering with evidence. Upon review, the Court of Criminal Appeals disagreed with the court of appeals that the factfinder in this case did not necessarily find every element necessary to convict Appellant of attempted tampering with evidence. The Court also concluded that the evidence presented at the bench trial was sufficient to support a conviction of attempted tampering. With the two prongs of the "Thornton" reformation analysis satisfied, reformation of the conviction was mandated. Therefore, the court of appeals was reversed, and the trial court ordered to reform Appellant’s judgment to reflect a conviction of attempted tampering with evidence and to conduct a new punishment hearing based on this reformed conviction.
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