On Appeal from the County Court at Law #1 Gregg County

A minor died as a result of blunt force trauma of head with closed head injury. The autopsy report concluded the manner of death was homicide. On the day of his death, the minor had been in the care of his father, and, for some of the time, his appellant stepmother. The police were not notified of minor's death until the next day. The minor's father told the investigating officers that the minor had fallen in the tub, had a seizure, and died. The appellant said that the father would not allow her to call 9-1-1. The minor's father was indicted for capital murder. While in jail, he changed his account of the events and said appellant was responsible for the child's death. A jury acquitted the appellant of capital murder. She was then indicted for the offense of injury to a child.

She brought an unsuccessful pre-trial application for writ of habeas corpus, arguing that the state was barred under principles of double jeopardy and collateral estoppel from prosecuting her under the new indictment. In the instant appeal, she challenged the trial court's denial of her writ, making the same arguments as before the trial court.

The state argued that the new indictment concerned whether appellant failed to obtain medical care for a child over whom she had assumed care, custody, and control. The state contended that her omission caused injury to the child, and that the injury-by-omission issue was not determined in the capital-murder trial. The court of appeals agreed, finding that whether the failure to seek medical treatment resulted in an injury was not the question answered in the first trial. The issue the jury in the first trial was asked to decide was whether appellant intentionally or knowingly committed an act that caused the child's death. Specifically, the focus was on whether she was the one who choked him, shook him, and struck his head on an object, or whether the minor's father was the killer. The trial court could reasonably conclude on the record that the current prosecution was not barred by collateral estoppel, the court of appeals concluded. The judgment of the trial court was thereby affirmed.