Charles Victor Sanne and Doyle Edward Skillern, Appellants v. the State of Texas, Appellee

Summary

The Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas affirmed the convictions, reforming Sanne's death sentence to life because he had received a favorable answer on the future dangerousness issue in his first trial, and affirmed Skillern's conviction. It held that the jury selection procedures and evidence admissions were proper, that a juror who would only vote death for a close friend must be excused under Witherspoon, and that the admission of a pathologist’s expert testimony on future dangerousness was error but harmless. The dissent argued that the expert testimony was not harmless and that the defendants were denied effective assistance of counsel.