Anthony L. Maldonado v. State, 430 S.W.3d 460

Anthony L. Maldonado was indicted on 13 counts: five counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and eight counts of indecency with a child by contact, alleging acts against two complainants occurring in 2005–2007; one count was waived and 12 were submitted to the jury.
The jury convicted Maldonado on all submitted counts; after he pleaded true to an enhancement, the trial court assessed life sentences on all counts to run concurrently.
During individual voir dire defense counsel asked whether jurors would be influenced by the multi-count indictment; the trial court sustained the State’s objection as an improper commitment question.
At trial, a hearsay objection was overruled when the prosecutor on re‑direct elicited that one complainant told another that "he touched her again;" the defense had not objected to that testimony earlier.
The convictions at issue on appeal included aggravated sexual assaults (penetration by penis and finger) and related indecency-by-touching counts alleged on the same dates; trial testimony indicated the touching occurred only in the course of digital or penile penetration.
The Fourth Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment except it vacated Count III and Count X (the indecency-by-contact convictions) as violative of the Double Jeopardy Clause and modified the judgment accordingly.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Voir dire: whether court erred in sustaining objection to defense question about multi-count indictment committing jurors	State: question was improper commitment and properly excluded	Maldonado: question probed jurors' ability to be fair despite multi-count indictment	Court: assuming error, any denial was harmless because similar inquiry was permitted and concerned jurors were excluded; issue overruled
Hearsay: admission of testimony about what M.R. told S.R.	State: re‑direct clarification was admissible given prior testimony and defense questioning opened the issue	Maldonado: reply by S.R. repeating M.R.’s statement was hearsay and prejudicial	Court: overruled; similar statements were already admitted without objection earlier, so any error was harmless
Double jeopardy: whether indecency counts (Counts III, X) are subsumed by aggravated sexual-assault counts	State: prosecution of separate offenses was proper	Maldonado: indecency counts were incident to and subsumed by the penetration offenses, so convictions impose multiple punishments for the same conduct	Court: sustained; indecency-by-touching in Counts III and X was subsumed by the penetration offenses and vacated
Remedy for double jeopardy violation	State: retain convictions as entered	Maldonado: vacate the lesser offenses	Court: modified the judgment to vacate the indecency convictions (Counts III and X) and affirmed the rest of the judgment

Davis v. State, 349 S.W.3d 517 (trial court’s limitation of voir dire reviewed for abuse of discretion)
Barajas v. State, 93 S.W.3d 36 (scope of proper voir dire inquiry and commitment questions)
Standefer v. State, 59 S.W.3d 177 (definition and analysis of commitment questions)
Woods v. State, 152 S.W.3d 105 (harmlessness when counsel later elicits essentially same voir dire information)
Patterson v. State, 152 S.W.3d 88 (sexual-contact offense subsumed when incident to penetration)
Ex parte Pruitt, 233 S.W.3d 338 (double jeopardy bars prosecution for sexual contact subsumed in a penetration offense)
Ex parte Cavazos, 203 S.W.3d 333 (remedy: vacate the lesser conviction when double jeopardy violation found)
Whalen v. United States, 445 U.S. 684 (Double Jeopardy Clause bars multiple punishments for same offense)
Evans v. State, 299 S.W.3d 138 (convictions for indecency and aggravated sexual assault based on same conduct violate double jeopardy)
Brooks v. State, 990 S.W.2d 278 (improper admission of evidence not reversible when same evidence admitted elsewhere without objection)