Cox, Kenyon Grady, 389 S.W.3d 817

Cox, in TX Court of Criminal Appeals, No. PD-1886-11, appeals after conviction on two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and two counts of indecency with a child.
Voir dire included a misstatement by defense counsel about concurrent-sentencing; initial response said concurrent, later aligned with State; neither was accurate.
During punishment deliberations, jury asked about concurrency; judge declined to answer; jury imposed maximums (life on each count and $10,000 fines) with consecutive sentencing as ordered by the trial court.
Second Court of Appeals reversed punishment judgment, holding trial counsel ineffective for misstatement and failure to correct it before the punishment verdict; court granted discretionary review on ineffectiveness grounds.
This Court reverses the Court of Appeals, affirms the trial court, and holds no ineffective-assistance occurred based on this record.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Was trial counsel ineffective for misstating stacking law to the jury?	Cox argues misstatement deprived effective assistance.	State contends no prejudice shown; Andrews distinction applies.	No reasonable probability of different result; ineffective assistance not shown.

Andrews v. State, 159 S.W.3d 98 (Tex. Cr. App. 2005) (basis for prejudice finding when jury misled about punishment)
Salinas v. State, 163 S.W.3d 734 (Tex. Cr. App. 2005) (Strickland standard; direct-appeal record limitations)
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (U.S. 1984) (establishes two-prong test for ineffective assistance)
Mallett v. State, 65 S.W.3d 59 (Tex. Cr. App. 2001) (noting limitations of direct-appeal record for IAC analysis)