Larry Michael Hoffman v. State Texas

A jury found appellant guilty of murder and sentenced him to thirty years confinement in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Institutional Division. Appellant in one point of error asserts that the trial court erroneously admitted an extraneous, unadjudicated offense in the punishment phase of the trial. We will affirm the judgment of the trial court. Appellant's point of error directly implicates the Court of Criminal Appeals opinion Grunsfeld v. State whose disposition resulted in a flurry of reversals and remands for trial courts' erroneously admitting unadjudicated offenses in the punishment phase of a trial. E.g., Robbins v. State, 843 S.W.2d 570, 570 (Tex. Crim. App. 1992); Young v. State, 843 S.W.2d 570, 571 (Tex. Crim. App. 1992); Slott v. State, 843 S.W.2d 571, 571 (Tex. Crim. App. 1992); Holifield v. State, 843 S.W.2d 572, 572 (Tex. Crim. App. 1992); see also Grunsfeld v. State, 843 S.W.2d 521, 526 (Tex. Crim. App. 1992) (holding admissibility of extraneous act requires final conviction). The state here attempts to circumvent a reversal on identical grounds by arguing that the extraneous offense would have been admissible at the guilt-innocence phase of a trial to rebut appellant's defensive theory. A brief recitation of the facts is necessary here to place the state's argument in context.