Prevost v. State

Summary

This document is the State’s appellate brief in Jeffery Keith Prevost’s capital murder appeal in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The State argues that Prevost failed to preserve challenges concerning notice of the death penalty, the constitutionality of Texas capital sentencing provisions, juror disqualification, and several mistrial rulings. The brief requests that the court overrule Prevost’s points of error and affirm the judgment imposing a death sentence.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Prevost preserved claims that the State violated due process and due course of law by failing to provide written notice of its intent to seek the death penalty.
2. Whether the Texas capital-sentencing statute, including its mitigation special issue, violates the Sixth Amendment by not requiring proof beyond a reasonable doubt that mitigating circumstances are insufficient to warrant life without parole.
3. Whether due process requires the State to prove the absence of sudden passion beyond a reasonable doubt to obtain a capital-murder conviction.
4. Whether the trial court abused its discretion in granting the State's challenge for cause to prospective juror William Hered.
5. Whether the trial court abused its discretion by denying mistrials based on inadmissible extraneous-offense testimony, a witness's statement that she wanted Prevost to receive the death penalty, a prosecutor's cross-examination question, and a prosecutor's reference to bribery of correctional officers.

Disposition

other