August 14, 2024 - The 12th Circuit Court of Appeals District in Tyler has affirmed the trial court judgment on August 7, 2024, in the Shelby County criminal trial of Michael David Masteron.
Shelby County District Attorney Karren Price confirms the trial judgment against Michael David Masterson, who was convicted on five different counts manslaughter and one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, was affirmed by the 12th Court of Appeals. Masterson’s appeal included seven arguments.
Masterson first argued the evidence to be insufficient to support his manslaughter convictions because it fails to show his conduct was reckless, and his second argument is that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon because it fails to show his conduct was intentional, knowing, or reckless.
The result of the extensive memorandum by the court of appeals was to conclude the evidence supports the jury’s implied finding of recklessness, and as such they overruled Masterson’s first and second issues.
A third argument by Masterson was the trial court erroneously failed to include “sua sponte” in the jury charge an instruction to disregard the State’s voir dire comment that, “this defendant doesn’t follow the rules.” The court contends no authority supporting the proposition was cited and that an instruction to disregard can constitute, “the law applicable to the case,” and accordingly the court overruled Masterson’s third issue.
The fourth argument was that the trial court erred by overruling Masterson’t objection to Trooper Taylor Buster’s testimony that his conduct was reckless. The appeals court didn’t agree with this argument and stated Masterson did not challenge the trial court’s ruling on any other grounds, and to the extent his citations to authority could be construed to raise other grounds, any error based on those grounds was not preserved for the appeals court review. The court overruled Masterson’s fourth claim.
Masterson contended in his fifth argument there was no legal basis existing for consolidating the indictments against him. The appeals court disagreed in referencing, “a defendant may be prosecuted in a single criminal action for all offenses arising out of the same criminal episode.” TEX. Penal Code Ann. § 3.02(a) (West 2021). Under Chapter 3 of the penal code. It was concluded by the court that the offenses were committed pursuant to the same transaction and the cases were properly consolidated. The court overruled the fifth issue.
The sixth argument by Masterson was the trial court erred by permitting the State to introduce evidence of extraneous crimes or bad acts during the punishment phase without proper notice. The appeal’s court overruled the sixth issue argument.
The seventh argument by Masterson claimed he was deprived of a fair trial because a juror biased against his defense was permitted to serve on the jury. Giving proper deference to the trial court, the appeal’s court couldn’t say trial court abused its discretion in denying the challenge of the juror and for the foregoing reasons the appeals court overruled the seventh issue.
Shelby County District Attorney Karren Price said there were concerns whether the appeals court would pay close enough attention to the evidence of recklessness against Masterson; however, they did.
“Not many people do manslaughter as recklessness anymore, because we have the intoxication manslaughter and everyone goes with that,” said Price.
She explained the intoxication manslaughter can be an easier direction to take because it’s easier in that a mental state doesn’t have to be proven, just the intoxication.
In speaking with some other lawyers, there were suggestions she couldn’t make the case; however, she felt that would be up to a jury.
“I said, I can’t make a decision in this case a jury has to, this community has been hurt by this case and a jury’s going to make this decision I’m not,” said Karren.
Price remarked that she was very impressed with the analysis of the evidence by Justice Greg Neeley who authored the memorandum.
What Price described as a “shotgun approach” in the appeal she said she has never seen it work very well.
“Go with what you know is going to get you there,” said Price. “But the court addressed every one of the issues and said, ‘we find no merit,’”
Price explained the aggravated assault with a deadly weapon conviction means Masterson has to serve 10 years before he will be eligible for parole, and the other charges he would only have to serve a third of his 20-year sentence.
Related Article: Masterson Found Guilty on All Charges
