No. 20-7579

Donald Phillips v. Texas

Lower Court: Texas
Docketed: 2021-03-29
Status: Denied
Type: IFP
IFP
Tags: 6th-amendment constitutional-rights criminal-procedure due-process ineffective-assistance-of-counsel judicial-misconduct juror-misconduct jury prosecutorial-misconduct sixth-amendment trial-procedure
Key Terms:
DueProcess
Latest Conference: 2021-05-27
Question Presented (AI Summary)

Is it proper or a violation of the 6th Amendment due process law for a defense attorney to discover that during testimony in trial one of the jurors was found to have been wearing earphones during witness testimony, and the defense attorney was made aware of this by the judge, but the defense attorney made no motions and tock no action nor placed the incident on record?

Question Presented (OCR Extract)

QUESTION(S) PRESENTED 1. Is it proper or a violation of the 6th Amendment due process law for a defense attorney to discover that during testimony in trial one of the jurors was found to have been wearing earphones during witness testimony, and the defense attorney was made aware of this by the judge, but the defense attorney made no motions and tock no action nor placed the incident on record? There is proof of this. 2. Is it proper or a violation of the 6th Amendment due process law for a prosecutor to target a hold-out juror when the vote is 11 guilty, 1 not guilty, and the hold-out, not guilty juror is being accused of being “mentally disabled" and ". . . can't make a sound decision?" So, the juror can't make a sound decision because the juror doesn't agree with the prosecution, or for that matter, the defense? And, the judge was made aware of this, no alternate was chosen and again the defense attorney made no motions. &

Docket Entries

2021-06-01
Petition DENIED.
2021-05-12
DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 5/27/2021.
2021-01-19
Petition for a writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis filed. (Response due April 28, 2021)

Attorneys

Donald Phillips
Donald Phillips — Petitioner
Donald Phillips — Petitioner