Texas Courts of Appeals
Hram v. State
No. 07-25-00401-CR 7/8/26
Issue:
If an undercover officer offers to perform a sex act on a defendant in exchange for money, has the officer violated the law, thereby making evidence inadmissible under Texas’s exclusionary rule in Code of Criminal Procedure Art. 38.23?
Holding:
No. Because the officer did not violate the defendant’s rights, the defendant has no standing to complain that the evidence against him was unlawfully obtained. “We note that [the defendant’s] construction of Art. 38.23(a) would lead to an absurd result. Art. 38.23(a) treats ‘state action’ and ‘private action’ the same or on equal footing (citation omitted). Under [the defendant’s] construction, [because] Art. 38.23(a) applies to the acts of an ‘other person,’ a criminal defendant could successfully argue that the testimony of a real prostitute who offered to perform a sexual act with the defendant for a fee to which he agreed would be inadmissible because the prostitute violated the law (citation omitted). We may not construe a statute in a manner that would lead to absurd results.” Read opinion.
Commentary:
Not every violation of a law will constitute a violation of a law for the purposes of Art. 38.23(a), and this case can be added to that long list of authority. A violation of the law must first be related to the purpose of the exclusionary rule. The laws against prostitution are not related to the purpose of the exclusionary rule. The court of appeals also noted that the defendant did not have standing to challenge the conduct of the undercover officer because that conduct did not violate any of the defendant’s rights. This should be a helpful decision for prosecutors who are faced with defense arguments that a technical violation of a law by law enforcement or an eyewitness should lead to the exclusion of evidence against the defendant.
State v. Peterson
Nos. 01-24-00630-CR and -00633-CR 7/14/26
Issue:
After a trial judge declared a mistrial because of juror misconduct in the defendant’s trial for indecency by contact and by exposure, did double jeopardy prevent the State from charging the defendant with continuous sexual abuse of a child alleging different date ranges?
Holding:
No. The Court concluded that the trial court incorrectly granted habeas relief to the defendant and dismissed the continuous sexual abuse indictment. During the trial for the indecency charges and after both parties had rested, the 14-year-old complainant and a victim-witness advocate were waiting for the elevator in the courthouse when a juror approached the complainant, put her hands on the complainant’s shoulder, and tried to speak with her. Defense counsel moved to excuse the juror, which the judge granted, but the judge also expressed concern that the jury had been “tainted” and declared a mistrial. Two days later, a grand jury indicted the defendant for continuous sexual abuse of a young child. The defendant moved to dismiss the charges based on double jeopardy, and the trial judge granted habeas relief. The State appealed, and the court of appeals ruled that double jeopardy did not bar the second indictment for continuous sexual abuse. “When comparing the indecency by exposure indictment and the continuous sexual abuse indictment, we cannot conclude the offenses are legally the same (citation omitted). The indecency by exposure indictment requires the State to prove a single act: that [the defendant] exposed his genitals. The offense is statutorily excluded as a predicate offense to continuous sexual abuse, and while it may be a lesser-included offense to aggravated sexual assault in some contexts, we cannot say that it is in this case because the continuous sexual assault indictment does not specify how [the defendant] allegedly committed aggravated sexual assault of the complainant. Thus, the charged exposure offense may contain an element (exposure) that the charged continuous offense does not include.” Read opinion.
Commentary:
There is a lot discussed in this opinion that does not break any new ground, such as the purpose of requiring the State to elect in a child sex abuse case, and whether or not the trial court had manifest necessity to grant a mistrial in this case. The fundamental double jeopardy holding in this case should be of great help to child abuse prosecutors. This decision makes it clear that indecency with a child by contact with the breast and indecency with a child by exposure are not lesser-included offenses of the greater offense of continuous sexual abuse of a young child (even though those offenses might conceivably be lesser-included offenses of one of the acts of sexual abuse). Keep watch if the Court of Criminal Appeals decides to review this decision, but in the meantime, this should be helpful in explaining to judges the nature of the offense of continuous sexual abuse of a young child and the lesser offenses of indecency with a child that are statutorily excluded from that greater offense.
Pennsylvania Supreme Court
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Brown
No. 32 EM 2023 6/16/26
Issue:
Did the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office have authority under the state’s Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) to grant a convicted murderer a new trial by conceding relief?
Holding:
No. Only the PCRA court may decide whether a defendant is entitled to relief. While a prosecutor’s concession of relief is influential, it is not dispositive. “[W]hen the prosecutor sides with a defendant, there is generally no adversarial testing of the defendant’s entitlement to relief, and the court is left without the benefits of opposing advocacy, including the presentation of counterarguments and exposure of misrepresentations of fact and law. The PCRA court’s review is limited to the record before it. … That is not to say a prosecutor should never concede relief. A prosecutor bears the responsibility of a minister of justice and not simply that of an advocate. Hence, a prosecutor is duty-bound to confess error, provided the facts and law call for it. But the proviso is critical. When relief is not dictated by the record and law but merely advocated for personal, political, ideological, policy, or other non-legal reasons, a prosecutor’s concession does not minister justice; it facilitates injustice.” The Court concluded that the concession by the District Attorney’s Office (DAO) was not reliable and record did not support conceding relief.
“These circumstances, troubling as they are, would not warrant a remedy beyond reversal of the PCRA court’s order in this particular case if they were confined to this one case. Unfortunately, they aren’t. Since 2018, the DAO has conceded relief well over 100 times, mostly in murder cases like this one. There have been numerous instances of unworthy concessions, lack of candor, misrepresentations of fact, lack of adequate investigation, and avoidance of hearings. And the problems are poised to continue.” Read opinion.
Commentary:
This concession of error by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner in a murder conviction obtained under a prior DA elicited a majority opinion, two concurring opinions, a concurring and dissenting opinion, and a dissenting opinion from the seven members of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Ultimately, that court asserted the judiciary’s prerogative as the ultimate arbiter of who receives post-conviction relief in that state, something that Texas courts have also jealously guarded. But this opinion may be more notable as confirmation that criminal justice reformers who succeeded in empowering prosecutors to revisit past convictions and sentences have started to lose the support of the political right, where the pendulum has swung back to “law and order” campaigning after more than a decade of “smart on crime” vibes. It also demonstrates the nationalized nature of today’s “rogue prosecutor” debate and serves as an example of how other elected officials may propose novel—sometimes even unconstitutional—solutions to address perceived injustices resulting from the exercise of prosecutorial discretion.