Thomas Dixon v. Texas

QUESTION ONE: Should Crawford be a one-way street? Contrary to Hemphill v. New York, __ U.S. __, 142 S. Ct. 681, 692-93, 211 L.Ed.2d 534 (2022), the trial court permitted the prosecution to admit testimony of a non-testifying party’s hearsay confession, implicating Petitioner, while denying the Petitioner an opportunity to present that same party’s repeated recantations. QUESTION TWO: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has consistently applied a sufficiency of the evidence test for constitutional error in contravention of Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S. Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967). This case presents an opportunity to rectify the Texas Court’s persistent refusal to follow this Court’s clear and unambiguous Constitutional commands. QUESTION THREE: There is a compelling need to resolve the conflict between federal and state courts as to what constitutes a closed courtroom. Here, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that the trial court’s total closure of the courtroom during a hearing regarding critical Crawford and Brady issues was “trivial,” without assessing any of the factors set out in Waller v. Georgia, 467 U.S. 39, 104 S. Ct. 2210, 81 L.Ed.2d 31 (2010).