Joseph Gamboa, Appellant v. the State of Texas

Summary

The Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed Joseph Gamboa's capital murder conviction and death sentence for the 2005 robbery-shootings at San Antonio's Taco Land bar, overruling all eighteen points of error. It held the evidence factually sufficient, that any error in the trial judge's sua sponte dismissal of a juror was harmless absent impairment of the seated jury's impartiality, that curative instructions cured a spectator outburst and stray extraneous-offense testimony, and that the eyewitness's in-court identification rested on an independent basis. Extending its Kitchens line of cases, the Court held that disjunctive submission of two capital-murder theories drawn from different subsections of Penal Code Sec. 19.03 did not violate jury unanimity because the same victim was alleged for the predicate murder. It rejected the assembled constitutional attacks on the Article 37.071 punishment scheme and held the lethal-injection claim unripe because execution was not imminent; Judge Cochran concurred in the treatment of point of error seven and otherwise joined, and Judges Womack and Johnson concurred.