Holder v. Texas (original by judge yeary)
Annotate this CaseIn the course of Appellant Christopher Holder’s capital murder trial, the State admitted evidence of his cell-phone site location information (CSLI) to establish his whereabouts during the weekend in which the offense was committed. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ultimately concluded that this evidence was obtained in violation of Article I, Section 9, of the Texas Constitution. The Court also concluded that the evidence should have been suppressed, and it remanded the case for the court of appeals to determine in the first instance whether Appellant was harmed “when the trial court failed to suppress the records under Article 38.23(a).” Following the Court of Criminal Appeals’ lead in Love v. Texas, 543 S.W.3d 835 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016), the court of appeals on remand conducted a constitutional harm analysis under Rule 44.2(a) of the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure. Under that standard of harm, the court of appeals was unable to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the CSLI evidence did not contribute to the jury’s verdict. It reversed Appellant’s conviction and remanded the case for further proceedings. As the court of appeals acknowledged, since Love was decided, it had come into question whether the Court properly applied Rule 44.2(a)’s standard for harm with respect to constitutional error in that case. The State petitioned the Court of Criminal Appeals to determine whether the appropriate standard for determining harm is that articulated in Rule 44.2(b). The Court determined the proper harm analysis was the one contained in Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure Rule 44.2(b), not 44.2(a). With regard to the State's second ground for review, arguing the admission of Appellant's CSLI records was harmless under Rule 44.2(b), the Court of Criminal Appeals found it did not ordinarily determine questions of harm in the first instance. Accordingly, the Court vacated the judgment of the court of appeals and remand the case to that court to conduct a harm analysis under Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 44.2(b).
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