Roosevelt Beasley, Appellant v. the State of Texas, Appellee

Summary

The Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas affirmed the Court of Appeals' judgment, holding that evidence of the appellant’s Crips gang membership and the gang’s general criminal conduct is admissible at the punishment phase without a specific link to the appellant’s own misconduct. The decision rests on Article 37.07, § 3(a) of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure and the relevance doctrine, treating the evidence as a permissible ‘circumstance of the offender.’ Justice Maloney, dissenting, would have required a linkage to the gang’s illegal activities, and Judges Clinton, McCormick, and Mansfield filed concurring opinions addressing the statutory interpretation and the need for limiting instructions.