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Tapps v. State

Having determined that a state-jail felony can be a predicate felony conviction under �46.04(a) of the Texas Penal Code, we conclude that the appellant's previous conviction for failure to register as a sex offender, a state-jail-felony offense, provided sufficient evidence to satisfy the State's burden that the appellant had been convicted of a felony. Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, No. PD-0946-08, 09-30-2009

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Price, J., delivered the opinion of the Court in which Keller, P.J., joined except as to Part II, and Meyers, Womack, Johnson, Keasler, Hervey, Holcomb and Cochran, JJ., joined.

OPINION

The appellant was indicted under Section 46.04(a)(1) of the Texas Penal Code, for unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon.*fn1 The indictment alleged that the appellant’s state-jail-felony conviction for failure to comply with sex-offender registration requirements qualified him as a felon for purposes of Section 46.04(a)(1).*fn2 A jury found the appellant guilty. The trial court, after finding two of the four alleged enhancement paragraphs to be true,*fn3 identified the appellant as an habitual criminal and sentenced him to thirty-two years in prison. On June 6, 2008, the Third Court of Appeals, in a published opinion, affirmed the appellant’s conviction after finding the appellant’s state-jail-felony conviction sufficient to support his conviction under the unlawful possession of a firearm statute.*fn4 We granted the appellant’s petition for discretionary review to determine whether a state-jail felony is a “felony” for purposes of Section 46.04(a)(1), and therefore whether the evidence was legally sufficient to support the appellant’s conviction for possession of a firearm by a felon. Because we find that the term “felony” under Section 46.04(a)(1) includes state-jail felonies, we affirm the court of appeals’s holding that the appellant’s state-jail-felony conviction is legally sufficient to support his conviction.

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