Lydia H. Grotti, Appellant v. the State of Texas

Summary

The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the court of appeals' reversal of Lydia Grotti's criminally negligent homicide conviction as factually insufficient. It held that the hypothetically correct jury charge would have defined "death" under Health & Safety Code § 671.001 rather than the Penal Code, because the Penal Code defines death only for unborn children, the term is technical in the hospital setting, and both parties — including the State itself, which requested judicial notice of § 671.001 — used that definition throughout trial. The Court further held that the court of appeals applied the correct, deferential factual-sufficiency standard and thoroughly explained its conclusion that the evidence McGhee was dead when Grotti occluded her endotracheal tube greatly outweighed the evidence she was alive, and it declined the State's renewed invitation to abandon Clewis-style factual-sufficiency review. Keller, P.J., dissented.