Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Chavez v. State
No. AP-77,117 8/20/26
Issue:
Was the defendant entitled to a reversal because the trial court deviated from the statutory procedure requiring that peremptory challenges in capital murder cases be exercised after questioning each panelist?
Holding:
No. By failing to object, the defendant waived any error related to the challenges. Before jury selection started, the judge agreed to the prosecutor’s request that the parties immediately make their challenges for cause upon passing each panelist in individual voir dire but defer exercising peremptory strikes until the appropriate number of jurors were qualified—essentially the jury selection procedure for non-capital cases under Code of Criminal Procedure Art. 35.25, rather than the procedure for capital cases under CCP Art. 35.13. The Court concluded that the defendant “did not object to this procedure. Hence, [the defendant] forfeited his claim. Indeed, because defense counsel aided the State in explaining to the trial judge how the parties preferred to exercise their peremptory strikes, he arguably, ‘waived any error by requesting the procedure followed in the present case’” (citation omitted). Read opinion.
Commentary:
This decision should help when a defendant claims that his attorney’s failure to object should not matter because the trial judge was required to follow a mandatory statute. There are exceptions, but a defendant is required to object in most situations to be able to raise error on appeal. Prosecutors trying a death penalty case, however, should probably not rely on this decision by following the procedure in Art. 35.25 rather than Art. 35.13. All the defense would have to do is object, and the trial court would be required to follow the proper statute. And the defendant would then be able to raise that error on appeal.
Williams v. State
No. PD-0692-25 8/20/26
Issue:
Was the State required to be more specific in its pleading in response to the defendant’s motion to quash, based on his argument that the six statutory methods of committing aggravated promotion of prostitution (owns, invests in, finances, controls, supervises, or manages) are undefined terms of indeterminate or variable meaning?
Holding:
Maybe. The Court concluded that any error in the defendant’s indictment was harmless. The defendant argued that the indictment did not give him sufficient notice of how he was alleged to have committed the offense, but the Court concluded that “it is clear from the record that [the defendant] was aware of the existence of communications between him and law enforcement as well as the evidence that the State was going to present to prove its case long before opening statements of his trial. [E]ven with all of this evidence provided to him, [the defendant] chose to deny the existence of prostitution enterprise rather than dispute his participation in the prostitution enterprise. … Had [the defendant] admitted the existence of such an enterprise and instead attacked how he was involved in the enterprise as a defensive theory, this case may very well be different. But by disavowing the existence of [the] prostitution enterprise entirely, any inadequacies in defining the statutory terms did not harm [the defendant].” Read opinion.
Concurrence (Parker, J., joined by Keel, J.):
“Ultimately, the aggravated-promotion-of-prostitution statute covers people, other than mere prostitutes or customers, who are entitled to proceeds from the prostitution business or who make the business operate through personal effort or financial support. A ‘person of common understanding’ would have no trouble understanding this.” Read concurrence.
Commentary:
The court makes no effort to decide whether the State should have been required to be more specific in its indictment, rather than just allege that the defendant did “own, invest in, finance, control, supervise, or manage” a prostitution enterprise, without attempting to allege how the defendant owned, invested in, financed, controlled, supervised, or managed the enterprise. The court went straight to applying Code of Criminal Procedure Art. 21.19, which is the harm analysis for indictment error. Taking this approach, however, does not really help prosecutors who wish to charge the offense of aggravated promotion of prostitution. In considering how to charge this offense, a prosecutor is faced with two choices: 1) plead the offense more specifically to show how the defendant “owned, invested in, financed, controlled, supervised, and/or managed” the enterprise; or 2) read this decision and determine if a defendant has been given sufficient notice through discovery, so any denial of the motion to quash would be harmless under Art. 21.19.