Today's Opinions - 6/24/09

The CCA handed down a number of orders today, but only two published opinions. Remember those eight cases that were all one opinion a little while back where the defendant who said what questions he'd ask at voir dire preserved error for excluded evidence? Holmes et. al v. State? Well, the Court granted rehearing on all of those cases (seven on the State's motion and one on its own). Here's a link to my summary of the opinion(s) if you're interested. Interesting.

In any case, the Court issued two published opinions in the following cases:

AP-75,654, Thomas Bartlett Whitaker v. State: The CCA affirmed this capital murder case. There were numerous issues, but the most prominent was a complaint that the State should not have referred to the defendant's attempt to plead guilty in exchange for two life sentences even though that evidence made up a significant portion of the defendant's mitigation case. Click here for a more detailed summary.

AP-76,098, Ex parte Armando Cortez Arce: The CCA upheld the defendant's conviction for failure to register as a sex offender despite his claim that his sentenced had discharged (and therefore he wasn't required to register) when a retroactive registration law went into effect. Click here for a more detailed summary.