Jimmy Reaf Holley v. State Texas

Appellant was convicted, after a jury trial, of murdering his infant daughter by scalding her with hot water. V.T.C.A. Penal Code, ? 19.02(a)(2) and (3). The jury assessed punishment at 99 years confinement in the Texas Department of corrections and a fine of $10,000. In a published opinion, the Amarillo Court of Appeals reversed appellants conviction, finding that the jury charge authorized the jury to convict appellant of murder if it found that appellant had caused his daughters death during the course of committing a misdemeanor, injury to a child. Holley v. State, 713 S.W.2d 381 (Tex.App.--Amarillo 1986). We granted the States petition for discretionary review to determine whether the Court of Appeals correctly held that the jury charge misstated the law concerning felony injury to a child; and whether the Court of Appeals correctly found that the charge did not "sufficiently limit the jury to a finding of an underlying felony injury to a child to support a finding of guilty of murder under the felony-murder statute." We will reverse the Court of Appeals.