1. “In the absence of a body, must the State prove the ‘fatal act of violence’ in order to convict someone of murder?” 2. “The court of appeals reviewed both the evidence and the elements of the offense in sequential, piecemeal fashion rather than cumulatively, and failed to respect the jury’s pr...
“In DWI-second-offender cases, is a prior DWI conviction an offense element or a punishment enhancement?”
1. “Is a waiver of the right to appeal following a plea of guilty without a recommended sentence invalid because the defendant could not know that an error would occur at the punishment phase?” 2. “Is the State’s waiver of its right to a jury trial adequate consideration to uphold a defendant’s w...
“The Eighth Court’s holding that rule 25.2(g)’s jurisdictional bar does not apply to deprive a trial court of jurisdiction pending issuance of the mandate on a State’s interlocutory appeal–the basis of the Eighth Court’s ultimate conclusion that Macias’s premandate trial was improperly terminated...
“The court of appeals erred by holding that there was charge error, even though the appellant never objected to or requested that the jury charge include a defensive issue of self-defense instruction to the defensive issue of the lesser-included offense.”
"Whether the Court of Appeals erred in reforming Appellant's judgment to reflect conviction for a Class B misdemeanor."
"The Eighth Court erred in holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in requiring, and placing the burden upon, the State to establish that jail-recorded telephone conversations Villegas seeks to exclude pretrial are: (1) relevant to an elemental or evidentiary fact of consequenc...
"In holding the evidence legally insufficient to support the defendant's convictions for engaging in organized criminal activity, specifically, that the State failed to prove that the defendant committed the predicate murders as a member of a criminal street gang, the Court of Appeals improperly ...
denotes a petition filled by SPA