Witcher v. Texas (original by presiding judge keller)
Annotate this CaseAppellant Cornell Witcher was convicted of continuous sexual abuse of a child. Holding that the evidence was insufficient to support the conviction, the court of appeals reversed the judgment. The question in this case was whether the State proved that Appellant’s sexual abuse of the victim occurred over a period of thirty days or more. The parties agreed there was evidence that the last instance of abuse occurred on July 26, 2018, two days before the child was examined by medical personnel. "For the evidence to be sufficient to show a period of abuse of thirty days or more, then, there must be some evidence from which a rational jury could infer that the abuse began on or before June 26, 2018." The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found the abuse began when the victim’s brother went to jail and that he went to jail “around” June 10, 2018. The court of appeals concluded that a rational jury could only speculate from this evidence that the abuse began on or before June 26. The Court disagreed, holding that a rational jury could have inferred it from the evidence.
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