Texas Courts of Appeals

Joseph v. State

No. 14-25-00062-CR                   3/24/26

Issue:

Does Code of Criminal Procedure Art. 38.37, allowing admission of extraneous offenses in certain cases (including sexual assault of a child), apply only to extraneous offenses involving children?

Holding:

No. The Court rejected the defendant’s argument that there is an “age-out” provision in Art. 38.37 that restricts introduction of extraneous-offense evidence committed against the complainant if the complainant was no longer a child at the time of the extraneous offense. “[T]here is no textual basis in the statute for such an interpretation. To the contrary, Art. 38.37 actually provides that extraneous-offense evidence can be admitted for its bearing on such relevant matters as the ‘subsequent relationship between the defendant and the child,’” under Art. 38.37, §1(b). The Court concluded that the statute “is broad enough to encompass the admission of any extraneous-offense evidence committed against a complainant” after the complainant has become an adult, as long as the complainant was a child at the time of the charged offense. Read opinion.

Commentary:

As if often the case with child predators, the defendant’s abuse of the victim continued well after he was a child. This decision analyzing Art. 38.37 will be very useful for child abuse prosecutors. The decision also contains an analysis under Texas Rule of Evidence 403 that will be helpful because the extraneous offenses offered by the State in this case took up a significant portion of the trial.