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State v. Morales

The 8th Court of Appeals erred in holding that the defense attorney rendered ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to preserve a challenge for cause of a juror who was an assistant district attorney. Court of Criminal Appeals, No. PD-0462-07

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Price, J., delivered the opinion of the Court in which Keller, P.J., and Meyers, Johnson, Keasler, Hervey, Holcomb and Cochran, JJ., joined. Womack, J., filed a concurring opinion.

OPINION

The appellant was indicted for the offenses of aggravated sexual assault of a child and indecency with a child. In a single trial, a jury found the appellant guilty of both offenses and assessed his punishment at thirty-five years’ confinement for the aggravated sexual assault offense and twenty years’ confinement for the indecency offense. The appellant appealed his conviction based on the trial court’s refusal to grant a challenge for cause against prospective juror Robyn Wyatt, an El Paso County assistant district attorney, and, secondly, he makes a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel on the part of his trial attorneys for failing to preserve the challenge for cause for appeal.*fn1 The Eighth Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s judgment of conviction based on the appellant’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim, and remanded the cause for a new trial.*fn2

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