Opinion issued April 28, 2026
In The
Court of Appeals For The
First District of Texas ———————————— NO. 01-24-00301-CR ——————————— CAMERON DAVIS, Appellant V. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee
On Appeal from the 182nd District Court Harris County, Texas Trial Court Case No. 1740809
O P I N I O N
A jury found Cameron Davis guilty of murdering his girlfriend, and the trial
court sentenced him to life in prison. Davis seeks reversal. In doing so, Davis makes
the following three arguments:
1) the evidence is legally insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he is the person who murdered his girlfriend (in spite of eyewitness testimony, including one eyewitness who said she saw him murder the victim); 2) a pretrial photo array shown to one eyewitness was impermissibly suggestive, and this suggestiveness led to the misidentification of Davis as the murderer; and 3) the trial court violated the requirement that the jury unanimously find him guilty because the court instructed the jury on two ways in which Davis could be guilty of murder, accompanied only by a general verdict form that did not distinguish between these two ways.
We hold that the evidence is legally sufficient to support the jury’s finding of
guilt. In addition, well-settled Texas law shows both that the photo array was not
impermissibly suggestive and that the trial court’s instructions did not violate the
unanimity requirement. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court’s judgment.
BACKGROUND
A grand jury indicted Davis for murdering Ryniscia Sanford by shooting her
with a firearm. The indictment alleged that he (1) intentionally or knowingly caused
her death or (2) intended to cause her serious bodily injury and committed an act
clearly dangerous to human life that caused her death. See TEX. PENAL CODE
§ 19.02(b)(1), (2).
Davis pled not guilty. The parties then tried guilt–innocence to a jury.
At trial, Margaret Washington (Sanford’s friend) testified that she was talking
with Sanford on the phone when she unwittingly provoked Davis’s ire. Washington
told Sanford she was going to set her up on a date. Unbeknownst to Washington,
Sanford had the call on speakerphone, and Davis was with her. 2 At this point, Washington heard Sanford scream. The call abruptly ended, and
Washington tried to call Sanford. Eventually, Davis answered the phone.
Washington knew Davis by Sanford’s nickname for him: “King.” Sanford and
Davis were dating one another, and apparently had been off and on for years.
Washington said she recognized Davis’s voice from prior interactions with him.
Davis was angry, and he told Washington to come pick up Sanford.
Washington could hear Sanford screaming in the background during the call.
Washington did not pick up Sanford, and at some point, the call ended.
When this unfolded, Sanford and Davis had been in her car in the parking lot
of an apartment complex. The complex has surveillance cameras.
Surveillance footage showed Sanford getting out of the car and fleeing from
a male passenger. Detective E. Wyatt, the lead homicide detective assigned to
investigate the case, testified that this man looked like Davis, apart from having
shorter hair than Davis did at trial. In Wyatt’s opinion, the man in the footage was
Davis.
At one point during her flight, Sanford sought refuge in an apartment that was
open for carpet cleaning. One of the cleaners, Carlos Umana, testified at trial.
Umana said that Sanford ran into the apartment fast, as if she was in danger.
Due to a language barrier, Umana was not able to talk with her much. But Sanford
seemed upset or nervous, and Umana understood that she was asking for help.
3 Sanford hid behind the apartment door for a minute or less. Then a man with
a handgun entered the apartment and took Sanford outside. On the stand, Umana
described the man in question as having a dark complexion and “wavy” hair,
testifying that the man’s hair was braided.
Umana did not see the man or Sanford after they left the apartment. But
Umana testified he heard gunshots a few minutes after the man took her away.
As part of their investigation, investigators showed Umana a photo array
about six days afterward; the array was comprised of six men. Based on Umana’s
description, the men in the array, including Davis, were African-American and had
braided hair. Umana identified Davis as the man who entered the apartment and took
Sanford away.
Umana also identified Davis as the man in question in open court.
Samantha Wyble, who resided at the apartment complex, testified to
witnessing the shooting. She was on her second-floor balcony drinking coffee and
reading a book when she noticed a man arguing with Sanford in the courtyard below.
They were about 30 to 35 feet away from where Wyble sat. According to Wyble, it
was obvious that Sanford was scared of the man, who seemed to be trying to herd
her in a particular direction, which she was resisting. Sanford kept saying, “Please
just let me go.” And the man replied, “I’m not going to do anything to you in front
of the cameras.”
4 Wyble began picking up her things to go inside and call the cops because the
situation seemed serious. But before Wyble could do so, the shooting started.
According to Wyble, the man shot Sanford, who tried to flee. He followed
her, continuing to shoot her as he went. Wyble said that the man shot Sanford
multiple times. In the end, he stood over Sanford, who lay prone, shooting her at
pointblank range.
Based on the description of the man that Wyble gave to investigators, they
showed her a photo array of six men. She identified Davis as the shooter, qualifying
her identification by indicating she was only 65 percent sure that it was him.
At trial, Wyble explained that she was only 65 percent certain when she
reviewed the array because Davis’s hair was longer in the photo than when she saw
him shoot Sanford. She believed that Davis had shorter hair or a shaved head when
he shot her.
Wyble also identified Davis as the shooter in open court. She said she was 100
percent sure that he was the shooter, even though he had braided hair at the time of
the trial.
There were surveillance cameras in the area of the complex where the
shooting occurred. As a result, the murder of Sanford was video-recorded.
The jury found Davis guilty as charged. The parties then tried punishment to
the bench, and the trial court assessed Davis’s punishment at life in prison.
5 DISCUSSION
I. The evidence is legally sufficient to prove that Davis is the person who murdered Sanford.
Davis argues that the evidence is legally insufficient to prove beyond a
reasonable doubt that he is the person who murdered Sanford. We disagree.
A. Legal sufficiency
The test for legal sufficiency is whether a rational jury could find each
essential element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. Harrell v. State, 620
S.W.3d 910, 913 (Tex. Crim. App. 2021). In conducting a legal-sufficiency review
of the evidence, we consider all the admitted evidence, viewing it in the light most
favorable to the verdict. Id. at 913–14. This standard recognizes it is the jury’s role
to resolve conflicts in the testimony, weigh the evidence, and draw reasonable
inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts. Id. at 914. So, we must defer to the
jury’s evaluation of the credibility of the witnesses and the weight to be given to
various evidence. Martin v. State, 635 S.W.3d 672, 679 (Tex. Crim. App. 2021).
B. Analysis
In every prosecution, the State must prove that the accused is the one who
committed the crime charged. Phillips v. State, 534 S.W.3d 644, 651 (Tex. App.—
Houston [1st Dist.] 2017, no pet.); see also Jones v. State, 458 S.W.3d 625, 630
(Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2015, pet. ref’d) (saying so in murder prosecution).
6 Here, to begin, the jury could have reasonably credited Washington’s
testimony. From it, the jury could have found that shortly before Sanford was
murdered, she and Davis, who were in a dating relationship, became embroiled in
an argument about the possibility that Sanford might see another man. This evidence
placed Davis at the apartment complex where Sanford was murdered and in her
company near the time of the murder; it showed that he had both a motive and the
opportunity to murder her. See Nisbett v. State, 552 S.W.3d 244, 265 (Tex. Crim.
App. 2018) (motive and opportunity are not sufficient, standing alone, to prove who
killed the victim in a murder prosecution, but they are circumstances indicative of
guilt); see also Ingerson v. State, 559 S.W.3d 501, 510 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018)
(accused’s anger at woman in whom he was romantically interested showed motive
for her murder).
The defense put on a witness to dispute Washington’s version of events. This
witness, Laporchia Alexander, testified that Davis was known by the nickname
“Pokey” and that no one called him “King,” contrary to Washington’s testimony.
But this conflict in the evidence was for the jury to resolve, and the jury could have
reasonably believed Washington, who said she recognized Davis’s voice. See
Harrell, 620 S.W.3d at 914 (jury resolves evidentiary conflicts).
7 Moreover, two eyewitnesses, Umana and Wyble, also placed Davis at the
scene, quarreling with Sanford. Umana testified to seeing Davis with a handgun.
Wyble testified to seeing Davis shoot Sanford.
The defense pointed out weaknesses in Umana’s and Wyble’s identification
of Davis. The defense emphasized that Umana’s description of Davis’s hair as
braided conflicted with other evidence, including surveillance footage, that seemed
to show the perpetrator had short hair or a shaved head. The defense also pointed out
that Wyble initially had only been 65 percent sure that Davis was the man that she
saw shoot Sanford. But the jury heard both Umana and Wyble testify, and it was the
jury’s role to evaluate their credibility and decide what weight to give to their
identifications. See Martin, 635 S.W.3d at 679 (appellate court defers to the jury’s
credibility determinations and to the weight a jury assigns to various evidence).
Here, the jury could have reasonably credited the witnesses’ identifications of
Davis in spite of their shortcomings. For example, Umana was not the only one who
was apparently mistaken about the nature of the perpetrator’s hair. M. McElvany, a
crime scene investigator who viewed the surveillance footage afterward, testified
that he found it difficult to say what hairstyle the perpetrator wore, and it appeared
as though he had braided hair. In addition, Detective Wyatt testified that inconsistent
witness statements are not unusual in traumatic situations, like this one. On this
record, the jury could have reasonably found that Umana’s identification of Davis
8 was accurate in general, even if Umana was mistaken in some particular detail. See
Sharp v. State, 707 S.W.2d 611, 614 (Tex. Crim. App. 1986) (jury may accept or
reject witness’s testimony in whole or part); Jeansonne v. State, 624 S.W.3d 78, 92
(Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2021, no pet.) (citing Sharp for same proposition);
see also, e.g., Arrellano v. State, 555 S.W.3d 647, 651 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st
Dist.] 2018, pet. ref’d) (inconsistencies between accounts of eyewitnesses and
inconsistencies between their pretrial statements and their testimony did not render
evidence legally insufficient); Davis v. State, 177 S.W.3d 355, 358–59 (Tex. App.—
Houston [1st Dist.] 2005, no pet.) (eyewitness testimony was not legally insufficient
merely because it was ostensibly inconsistent with physical evidence).
Similarly, any uncertainty in Wyble’s pretrial identification, as compared to
her in-court identification of Davis as Sanford’s murderer, was for the jury to
resolve. See Martin, 635 S.W.3d at 679 (appellate court defers to jury’s credibility
assessments); Harrell, 620 S.W.3d at 914 (jury resolves evidentiary conflicts);
Sharp, 707 S.W.2d at 614 (jury was tasked with resolving inconsistencies in
eyewitness’s account, and even a total failure to identify the defendant on one
occasion would go only to the weight of the witness’s identification). In fact, if
credited by the jury, as it reasonably could have been here, Wyble’s testimony that
she saw Davis shoot Sanford is on its own legally sufficient to support the jury’s
finding of guilt. See Shah v. State, 414 S.W.3d 808, 812 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st
9 Dist.] 2013, pet. ref’d) (“It is well-established that the testimony of a sole witness to
an offense may constitute legally sufficient evidence to support a conviction.”).
We overrule Davis’s issue concerning the legal sufficiency of the evidence.
II. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying Davis’s motion to suppress Umana’s out-of-court pretrial identification of him; the array was not impermissibly suggestive.
Davis next argues that the trial court abused its discretion by denying his
motion to suppress Umana’s pretrial identification of him because the photo array
was impermissibly suggestive, thereby violating his right to due process. We
disagree that the array was impermissibly suggestive. The trial court did not err.
A. Impermissible suggestiveness
Complaints about the suggestiveness of a photo array are subject to a two-step
inquiry. The defendant must first show “by clear and convincing evidence that the
pretrial procedure was impermissibly suggestive.” Balderas v. State, 517 S.W.3d
756, 792 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016). If he does not do so, our inquiry ends, and his
complaint fails. See Ford v. State, 919 S.W.2d 107, 117 (Tex. Crim. App. 1996). If
the defendant shows the array was impermissibly suggestive, we proceed to the next
step and “assess[] the reliability of the identification under the totality of the
circumstances” to ascertain whether the procedure “gave rise to a very substantial
likelihood of irreparable misidentification.” Balderas, 517 S.W.3d at 792, 796.
10 A photo array may be impermissibly suggestive in the way in which it is
presented to the witness or due to the content of the array itself. Barley v. State, 906
S.W.2d 27, 33 (Tex. Crim. App. 1995). As to content, an array “may be
impermissibly suggestive if the suspect is the only individual in the array who
closely resembles the pre-procedure description.” Balderas, 517 S.W.3d at 794. But
the people in the array “need not be identical” to one another. Id.; see also Ragsdale
v. State, 713 S.W.3d 435, 458 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2025, no pet.)
(persons should be similar enough to reasonably test reliability of identification).
When a defendant argues the content of the array itself was impermissibly
suggestive on its face and his challenge does not turn on witness credibility, we
review the issue of suggestiveness de novo. Colgin v. State, 132 S.W.3d 526, 531–
32 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2004, pet. ref’d); see also Gamboa v. State, 296
S.W.3d 574, 581 (Tex. Crim. App. 2009) (reviewing de novo ruling on how
suggestiveness of photo array may have influenced in-court identification). But we
defer to the trial court’s determination of historical facts supported by the record
when its fact findings turn on the credibility and demeanor of the witnesses. Colgin,
132 S.W.3d at 531.
The photo array is in the record. It features headshots (photographs from the
shoulders up) of six African-American men in two rows of three. The photos are of
11 the same size and shape. They were taken from approximately the same perspective
and are of the same general quality. The men in the array appear to be in the same
general age range. Each of the men has a braided hairstyle with the same color of
hair (black). The six men have similar complexions. To the extent their clothing is
visible, all are dressed in casual civilian clothes. The backgrounds of the photos are
plain. From the photos, it is not possible to discern the heights or weights of the men.
Davis is not the “only individual in the array who closely resembles the pre-
procedure description.” Balderas, 517 S.W.3d at 794. Davis does not stand out from
the others in a way that emphasizes his presence in the array or that tends to draw
the viewer’s eye to him in particular.
Our Court has held that photo arrays comparable to this one were not
impermissibly suggestive. See, e.g., Colgin, 132 S.W.3d at 532 (photos of six white
men dressed in civilian clothes with similar facial features and receding hairlines
were roughly similar; array was not impermissibly suggestive); Page v. State, 125
S.W.3d 640, 647 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2003, pet. ref’d) (array of six
African-American men dressed in civilian clothes with short black hair who
appeared to be of similar age was not an impermissibly suggestive despite slight
differences); Goldberg v. State, 95 S.W.3d 345, 356–57, 378 (Tex. App.—Houston
[1st Dist.] 2002, pet. ref’d) (array of six photos of equal quality, size, and shape,
taken from same general perspective, showing young white men with light blond to
12 dark brown hair, and in which appellant was not distinctive, was not impermissibly
suggestive).
At trial, Davis argued that the array at issue was impermissibly suggestive
because he is the only person in it wearing a red shirt. But he did not explain why
this makes the array suggestive. The color of the shirts worn by the six men varies.
Two wore a white shirt, one wore a blue shirt, one wore a black shirt, one wore a
dark-colored shirt that may have been black, and Davis wore a red shirt.
Under settled law, the fact that Davis was the lone person in the array who
wore a red shirt does not make the array impermissibly suggestive. See, e.g.,
Cienfuegos v. State, 113 S.W.3d 481, 492 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2003,
pet. ref’d) (rejecting claim that array was impermissibly suggestive because
appellant was only one wearing red shirt); see also In re M.I.S., 498 S.W.3d 123,
132 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2016, no pet.) (difference in shirt colors or
patterns did not make array impermissibly suggestive).
Notably, Umana testified that he could not recall what color shirt the armed
man who came into the apartment searching for Sanford was wearing at the time.
And Wyble, the other eyewitness, testified that the man who shot Sanford was
dressed in a white shirt. So Davis cannot even contend the red shirt was intended to
suggest or did suggest his identity by corresponding to the clothing he was said to
have worn when he allegedly committed the murder. Cf. Fisher v. State, 525 S.W.3d
13 759, 763 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2017, pet. ref’d) (rejecting claim that
array showing appellant in red-hooded sweatshirt was impermissibly suggestive
given that this matched the description of the perpetrator’s clothing provided by
witness).
Davis also argued at trial that the array was impermissibly suggestive because
he says that he is the only person in the array who does not have a beard. But on its
face, the array does not support his position:
14 To begin, shadows in the photos make it somewhat unclear how many do and
how many do not have beards. At least two men plainly have short beards. But the
extent to which the other men do is difficult to discern due to shadows. Before the
trial court denied Davis’s motion to suppress, Detective A. Vera, the homicide
investigator who prepared the array, testified about the uncertainty created by these
shadows. Later, during trial, Sergeant A. Hinojosa, who was a homicide investigator
at the time of the investigation and presented the array to Umana, testified similarly
regarding the shadows. On this record, the trial court could have reasonably rejected
Davis’s premise that he alone among the six men in the array was beardless.
Our Court and others have routinely held that variations in facial hair of the
sort that appear in this array do not make the array impermissibly suggestive. See,
e.g., Ragsdale, 713 S.W.3d at 458 (photo array was not impermissibly suggestive
when four of six African-American men in it had light facial hair); Escovedo v. State,
902 S.W.2d 109, 116–17 & n.4 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1995, pet. ref’d)
(photo array of six Hispanic men with similar characteristics but variations in facial
hair—four had beards and mustaches and only one was similar to appellant’s—was
not impermissibly suggestive); see also Turner v. State, 600 S.W.2d 927, 932–33
(Tex. Crim. App. [Panel Op.] 1980) (rejecting argument that five-person line-up was
impermissibly suggestive because only appellant and two others had beards and
these two other men were unlike appellant in size or hair color); Wilson v. State, 15
15 S.W.3d 544, 552–53 (Tex. App.—Dallas 1999, pet. ref’d) (rejecting argument that
array was impermissibly suggestive when defendant argued (among other things)
that he was “the only person in the photographic spread without facial hair”; all of
the men in the array were African-American, bald, and appeared to be approximately
the same age); Mallard v. State, 661 S.W.2d 268, 276–77 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth
1983, no pet.) (line-up of five men was not impermissibly suggestive even though
defendant was “the only one with no obvious facial hair”; all five in line-up were
African-American men of the same general height and weight and they were all
dressed in substantially the same manner).1
1 On appeal, Davis primarily focuses on the second step of the inquiry—whether the photo array gave rise to a very substantial likelihood of irreparable misidentification. For example, he emphasizes that Umana’s pre-procedure description of the suspect as having braided hair is inconsistent with the video surveillance footage showing that the suspect had closely cropped hair instead.
But the second step of the inquiry is immaterial absent a showing of impermissible suggestiveness. Ford, 919 S.W.2d at 117; see also Haq v. State, 445 S.W.3d 330, 337 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2013, pet. ref’d) (second step of inquiry concerning reliability of identification “need only be considered once a determination has been made that the relevant out-of-court identification procedure was impermissibly suggestive”); Anderson v. State, 414 S.W.3d 251, 258–59 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2013, pet. ref’d) (second step inquiring into reliability of identification is not relevant to first step as to impermissible suggestiveness). And whether Umana may have been mistaken in his belief about the length or style of the suspect’s hair has no bearing on whether the array created based on that description was impermissibly suggestive. See, e.g., Barley, 906 S.W.2d at 33 (inquiry as to whether content of array itself is impermissibly suggestive concerns whether “suspect is the only individual closely resembling the pre-procedure description” of the suspect). 16 In sum, while the six persons in the photo array are not identical, identicalness
is not required. Balderas, 517 S.W.3d at 794. The array features men who
correspond to a rough description of the suspect provided by Umana, and the array
was not impermissibly suggestive. See, e.g., Anderson v. State, 414 S.W.3d 251,
254, 258–59 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2013, pet. ref’d) (photo array of six
bald, tattooed white men of the same general age was not impermissibly misleading
even though only three, including appellant, had facial hair; the court rejected the
complaint that distinguishing characteristics of the other five made the array too
suggestive, explaining that “a photo array must contain individuals who fit a rough
description of the suspect” (citation modified)). And having held that the array was
not impermissibly suggestive, we conclude that Davis’s complaints about the array
fail. See Ragsdale, 713 S.W.3d at 458 (court of appeals did not need to address
second step as to whether photo array created substantial likelihood of
misidentification, given its holding that the array was not impermissibly suggestive).
We overrule Davis’s issue concerning the photo array.
III. The trial court did not violate the jury unanimity requirement by instructing the jury on two alternate ways of committing murder under sections 19.02(b)(1) and 19.02(b)(2). A guilty verdict in a felony criminal prosecution must be unanimous. Ngo v.
State, 175 S.W.3d 738, 745 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005). Davis argues that the trial
court’s jury charge erroneously allowed the jury to find him guilty without unanimity
17 because the court disjunctively instructed the jury on two ways in which he may
have committed murder—by intentionally or knowingly causing Sanford’s death or
by intending to cause serious bodily injury and committing an act clearly dangerous
to human life that caused Sanford’s death—accompanied by a general verdict form
that did not require the jury to specify which of these two ways the jury found was
proven. See TEX. PENAL CODE § 19.02(b)(1), (2) (criminalizing both of these acts as
murder).
As Davis acknowledges, binding Texas precedent has already rejected this
argument. See Saenz v. State, 451 S.W.3d 388, 390 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014). As the
Court of Criminal Appeals has held, a trial court does not violate the unanimity
requirement by disjunctively instructing the jury on alternate ways of committing
the same crime. Id.
With respect to murder, the Court of Criminal Appeals has held that different
legal theories about the same victim’s death are alternate ways of committing the
same crime. Davis v. State, 313 S.W.3d 317, 342 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010). In other
words, intentionally or knowingly causing death and intending to cause serious
bodily injury and committing an act clearly dangerous to human life that causes
death are merely two ways of committing the same crime—murder. Thus, their
disjunctive submission in the charge does not violate the unanimity requirement.
18 Courts across Texas have repeatedly reached this conclusion. See, e.g., Yost
v. State, 222 S.W.3d 865, 877–78 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2007, pet. ref’d)
(unanimity requirement not violated by disjunctively instructing jury on murder
under sections 19.02(b)(1) and (b)(2) of the Texas Penal Code); see also Aguirre v.
State, 732 S.W.2d 320, 324–26 (Tex. Crim. App. 1982) (op. on reh’g) (no error in
disjunctively instructing jury on two alternate ways of committing murder:
intentionally or knowingly causing death and so-called felony murder, which are
now codified in sections 19.02(b)(1) and 19.02(b)(3) of the Texas Penal Code);
Braughton v. State, 522 S.W.3d 714, 727–28 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2017)
(citing Aguirre for proposition that sections 19.02(b)(1) and 19.02(b)(2) are alternate
ways of committing murder), aff’d, 569 S.W.3d 592 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018).
Our own Court has repeatedly held that the disjunctive submission of murder
under sections 19.02(b)(1) and 19.02(b)(2) accompanied by a general verdict form
does not violate the unanimity requirement. See, e.g., Harris v. State, No. 01-23-
00549-CR, 2025 WL 994036, at *6–8 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] Apr. 3, 2025,
pet. ref’d) (mem. op., not designated for publication); Lazarine v. State, No. 01-19-
00982-CR, 2021 WL 5702182, at *4–9 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] Dec. 2,
2021, pet. ref’d) (mem. op., not designated for publication); Pierre v. State, No. 01-
11-00681-CR, 2012 WL 6644780, at *1–2 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] Dec. 20,
2012, pet. struck) (mem. op., not designated for publication).
19 We overrule Davis’s issue concerning jury unanimity.
CONCLUSION
We affirm the trial court’s judgment.
Jennifer Caughey Justice
Panel consists of Justices Guerra, Caughey, and Dokupil.
Publish. TEX. R. APP. P. 47.2(b).