Ex Parte Thomas Edward Castillo
No. PD-0545-14
Case Summary written by Sarah Ellison, Articles Editor.
JUDGE HERVEY delivered the opinion of the Court.
In 2000, the appellant married Carol Sanchez. Following their separation ten years later, the appellant snuck into Sanchez’s bedroom and murdered her new boyfriend, Rogelio “Ray” Nava, and inflicted stab injuries to Sanchez, which she survived. The appellant was charged in two separate indictments for capital murder and aggravated assault and burglary.
Prior to the capital-murder trial, the appellant moved to consolidate the two indictments and requested that the State specify how the burglary prior to the capital murder was committed. The trial court denied both motions. The appellant then asked for instructions to be given on murder and manslaughter instead of the full capital murder offense, a request that was also denied by the trial court. The appellant was acquitted of capital murder and subsequently filed a pretrial writ application claiming double jeopardy barred the second prosecution for the aggravated assault and burglary indictments. The trial court denied the application and the appellant appealed to the San Antonio Court of Appeals. The San Antonio Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s decision and ordered the trial court to dismiss the second indictment for aggravated assault and burglary. In response, the State filed a petition for discretionary review arguing the court of appeals erred in barring the second prosecution.
ISSUE: Whether appellant’s successive prosecutions for burglary and aggravated assault was jeopardy barred as a result of his prior acquittal for capital murder.
Here, the Court of Criminal Appeals turned to the Double Jeopardy Clause, which “protects an accused from impermissible multiple punishments or successive prosecutions for the same offense after an acquittal or conviction.” To understand the meaning of the word “same,” the court used a test established in United States v. Dixon, 509 U.S. 688, 697 (1993) which explained that a lesser-included offense is legally the same as a greater offense unless the lesser-included offense requires proof of a fact that is not required to establish the greater offense. After determining the offenses are legally the same, the court must analyze if they are also factually the same.
The State argued that burglary and capital murder were not the same because each offense requires proof of a fact the other does not. Under similar facts, the court in Littrell v. State, 271 S.W.3d 273 (Tex. Crim. App. 2008) previously held that the offenses of aggravated robbery and felony murder were legally the same as pled in the case. Applying Littrell here, the court determined that to establish capital murder, the State needed to “prove no more than the [burglary] (or attempted [burglary]) . . . plus additional facts.” As a result, the court of appeal’s decision as to the burglary charge was affirmed and the appellant’s prosecution for burglary was barred by double jeopardy.
Similarly, the State next argued that the aggravated assault claim should not be barred because the offense offered proof of a fact that capital murder does not. The court determined that “aggravated assault [was] within the proof necessary for the State to establish capital murder as charged in this case and both offenses [were] legally the same.” However, when determining if they were factually equal, the court found that the victims alleged in the capital murder and aggravated assault charges were two different units of prosecution. As a result, the court of appeal’s decision as to the aggravated assault prosecution was reversed, not barring prosecution on the aggravated assault indictment.