Cassandra Yvette Garcia v. the State of Texas, 01-23-00262-CR

Cassandra Yvette Garcia was convicted by a jury of delivering more than one gram but less than four grams of cocaine to an undercover police officer in Houston, Texas.
The conviction stemmed from two encounters: Garcia initially provided a small baggie containing cocaine to the officer at a bar, and, weeks later, delivered a larger quantity (“8ball”) after repeated contact.
Garcia raised the defense of entrapment, claiming she was induced by the officer's flirtatious behavior and the promise or implication of a romantic/sexual relationship, not criminal intent.
The trial court sentenced her to ten years’ imprisonment, suspended the sentence, and placed her on community supervision; Garcia appealed her conviction.
On appeal, Garcia argued the jury could not have reasonably rejected her entrapment defense and that prosecutorial misconduct denied her a fair trial due to violations of a motion in limine and allegedly improper jury arguments.

Issue	Garcia's Argument	State's Argument	Held
Sufficiency of Evidence on Entrapment	Jury could not have rationally rejected her entrapment defense	Garcia acted of her own volition, was merely given opportunity	Jury’s verdict was reasonable; evidence supported rejection of entrapment defense
Prosecutorial Misconduct (Mistrial)	Repeated limine violations and improper arguments denied fair trial	Any errors were cured or not prejudicial; arguments were proper	No abuse of discretion in denying mistrial; any errors cured, not so prejudicial
Improper Jury Argument	State made several unpreserved and improper comments	Arguments were within allowable bounds, responses to defense	Only preserved complaints reviewed; no reversible error in prosecutor’s arguments
Cumulative Error	Overall effect of misconduct was to undermine fairness	No cumulative prejudicial impact from preserved issues	Cumulative error rule does not apply; no fundamentally unfair trial shown

Hernandez v. State, 161 S.W.3d 491 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005) (defining scope and elements of entrapment defense in Texas)
England v. State, 887 S.W.2d 902 (Tex. Crim. App. 1994) (setting forth the subjective/objective elements for entrapment)
Saxton v. State, 804 S.W.2d 910 (Tex. Crim. App. 1991) (jury’s verdict rejecting a defense is implied in a conviction)
Stahl v. State, 749 S.W.2d 826 (Tex. Crim. App. 1988) (outlining standard for reversible prosecutorial misconduct)
Brooks v. State, 323 S.W.3d 893 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010) (jury as the sole judge of the weight and credibility of evidence)