Christian, Antoine Leon AKA Christian, Reginald Jerome

• Court: Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas
• Decided: September 25, 2024
• Docket: WR-39,987-04
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF TEXAS

NO. WR-39,987-04

EX PARTE REGINALD JEROME CHRISTIAN AKA ANTOINE LEON CHRISTIAN, Applicant

ON APPLICATION FOR A WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS CAUSE NO. 1093011-A IN THE 184TH DISTRICT COURT FROM HARRIS COUNTY

KEEL, J., filed a concurring opinion.

CONCURRING OPINION

The majority opinion confuses “same type of misconduct” with circumstances

surrounding it. Surrounding circumstances like other witnesses or corroboration might

rebut an inference of falsity or undermine materiality, but it would not inform an

assessment of sameness. Indeed, the parties agree that Goines’s alleged misconduct in

this case was the same type of misconduct that he committed before, and that is

consistent with our caselaw.

Newly alleged misconduct is of the same type as earlier misconduct if it “would Christian Concurring 2

have affected the evidence in the applicant’s case[.]” Ex parte Coty, 418 S.W.3d 597,

605 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014). For example, Mathews held that Goines’s two earlier

instances of proven or alleged misconduct “would each at least broadly be of the kind

that, if repeated in Applicant’s case, would have affected the evidence against him:

manufacturing false evidence to obtain a drug arrest or conviction.” Ex parte Mathews,

638 S.W.3d 685, 691 (Tex. Crim. App. 2022) (per curiam). In contrast, a lab tech’s

prior instances of intentional “dry-labbing” cocaine and alprazolam were not the same

type of misconduct as his “carelessness or general incompetence” in testing for

marijuana. Ex parte Owens, 515 S.W.3d 891, 897 (Tex. Crim. App. 2017).

Sameness depends on the misconduct, not the circumstances surrounding it. Such

circumstances as we have here—like other eyewitnesses and Applicant’s

inconsistencies—may rebut the inference of falsity and undermine the materiality of the

alleged misconduct, but they would not change the type of misconduct Goines has

repeated—falsifying offense reports to support drug charges. So I concur in the

majority’s result without joining its opinion.

Filed: September 25, 2024

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