Second Court of Appeals

Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued - Week of August 29, 2022.

NOTE: Summaries are prepared by the court's staff attorneys and law clerks for public information only and reflect his or her interpretation alone of the facts and legal issues. The summaries are not part of the court's opinion in the case and should not be cited to, quoted, or relied upon as the opinion of the court.

Links to full text of opinions (PDF version) can be accessed by clicking the cause number.

McCurley v. State, No. 02-21-00122-CR (Aug. 31, 2022) (Walker, J., joined by Kerr and Bassel, JJ.).

Held:  Appellant’s confession was not rendered involuntary by a detective’s “promise” that Appellant would not be sentenced to death by electric chair or hanging because such was a statement of fact regarding the available methods of execution rather than a promise that Appellant would not receive the death penalty if he confessed.  Further, an analyst did not engage in unlicensed DNA forensic analysis when she completed “batch work” and neither examined nor interpreted the test results. Finally, Appellant had no standing to contest the warrantless search of his DNA profile when that DNA was legally obtained from his abandoned trash.