David Blake Turner v. State, 573 S.W.3d 455

David Blake Turner was convicted by a jury of two counts of continuous sexual abuse of twin sisters (victims S.E.H. and S.H.) allegedly committed between on or about June 1, 2013 and August 1, 2013; sentences: concurrent 45-year terms.
Indictment alleged two or more acts of sexual abuse per victim (touching genitals, digital penetration, sexual organ contact) while defendant was over 17 and victims under 14.
Victims testified to multiple incidents: an out-of-state incident in mid-June 2013 (Portales, NM), repeated acts in early July after Turner moved in, and a specific incident on July 31/early August 1 described on a SANE exam.
State did not rely on the New Mexico incident to prove elements of the Texas offense but offered it to show plan/motive; out-of-state acts cannot be predicate acts under Texas law.
Turner raised two issues on appeal: (1) legal insufficiency to show two or more acts occurred over a period of 30+ days, and (2) that the jury charge failed to require unanimity that the first and last acts were at least 29 days apart.
The court affirmed, finding evidence sufficient under Jackson v. Virginia and that the charge error, though present, was not egregiously harmful given the record.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Sufficiency of evidence that acts spanned 30+ days	State: victims’ testimony (including one identifying July 31/Aug 1) plus calendar inference supports 30-day span	Turner: earliest Amarillo act was ~July 2–3; last act July 31/Aug 1 — insufficient to reach 30 days	Affirmed: Viewing evidence in light most favorable to verdict, a rational jury could find acts occurred over a period of 30+ days
Jury charge unanimity re: 30-day requirement	State: charge tracked statute and prosecutor explained timeframe; jury could infer 30-day span	Turner: application paragraph permitted conviction if two acts occurred within an alleged multi-month timeframe without requiring first and last acts be 30+ days apart (Smith/Jimenez error)	Error found in wording but not preserved; on egregious-harm review, error was not egregiously harmful — conviction affirmed

Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (standard for sufficiency review) (establishes beyond-a-reasonable-doubt sufficiency test)
Queeman v. State, 520 S.W.3d 616 (Tex. Crim. App. 2017) (deference to jury credibility and inferences)
Brooks v. State, 323 S.W.3d 893 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010) (sufficiency review framework)
Villalon v. State, 791 S.W.2d 130 (Tex. Crim. App. 1990) (child sexual-abuse testimony given wide latitude)
Hines v. State, 551 S.W.3d 771 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2017) (continuous sexual abuse requires last act to occur on at least the 29th day after the first act)
Smith v. State, 340 S.W.3d 41 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2011) (application-paragraph error: charge allowed conviction without requiring acts be 30+ days apart)
Villarreal v. State, 453 S.W.3d 429 (Tex. Crim. App. 2015) (standard for egregious harm when charge error is unobjected-to)
Lee v. State, 537 S.W.3d 924 (Tex. Crim. App. 2017) (out-of-state acts cannot serve as predicate ‘‘sexual abuse’’ under Texas statute)