Jesus E. Cosio, Appellant v. the State of Texas

Summary

The Court of Criminal Appeals held that the jury charges were erroneous because they permitted non-unanimous verdicts: several distinct incidents of sexual conduct could have satisfied each count, and the boilerplate unanimity instruction did not require the jury to agree on a single incident of criminal conduct. Because Cosio neither objected to the charges nor made a specific election request, he forfeited the constitutional unanimity component of his complaint, confining review to egregious harm under Almanza. The court found no egregious harm, reasoning that the record made it highly likely the jury was in fact unanimous. It reversed the court of appeals' judgment and remanded for consideration of Cosio's remaining points of error on the three convictions not overturned for evidentiary insufficiency.