Odelugo v. Texas (original by judge price)
Annotate this CaseAfter pleading guilty to engaging in organized criminal activity on the advice of his retained trial counsel, appellant filed a motion for new trial alleging a conflict of interest on counsel’s part. At the trial court’s hearing on the motion, trial counsel, accused of having misappropriated certain funds entrusted to him by his client, invoked his Fifth Amendment right to refuse “to be a witness against himself.” In response, appellant argued to the trial court that “[a]n inference can be taken from that” that trial counsel had misappropriated the funds. The trial court declined to adopt that inference and denied the motion. The court of appeals, noting in its opinion that the entirety of the evidence offered by the appellant in support of his motion for new trial was “uncontroverted due to [trial counsel]’s invocation of his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself,” held that the trial court had abused its discretion in denying the motion. It reversed the trial court’s judgment (effectively vacating the appellant’s conviction) and remanded the matter back to that court for a new trial. The State petitioned the Court of Criminal Appeals for discretionary review of the court of appeals’ opinion. The Court of Criminal Appeals concluded that trial court did not abuse its discretion “in denying appellant’s new-trial motion on the ground that his trial counsel had a conflict of interest,” and the court of appeals erred to conclude otherwise. The judgment of the court of appeals was therefore reversed. Because the court of appeals sustained the appellant’s first and second issues on appeal, it did not reach the appellant’s “third and fourth issues, in which he argue[d] that the trial court erred in denying his new-trial motion on the ground that his trial counsel failed to adequately inform him of the immigration consequences of his guilty plea.” Accordingly, the case was remanded to the court of appeals for consideration of remaining issues “necessary to the final disposition” of the appellant’s appeal of conviction.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.