Owens, Kevin Antonio, PD-0486-15

Kevin Antonio Owens was convicted by a jury of capital murder committed in the course of a robbery and sentenced to life without parole.
Facts: Owens confronted the decedent, Fusham Zhang, about money Zhang allegedly owed him; Owens pulled a large butcher knife, grabbed/ruffled Zhang’s pockets, demanded money, and stabbed Zhang in the neck, killing him.
Multiple eyewitnesses testified that Owens demanded money and searched Zhang’s pockets immediately before the stabbing; the knife was later recovered near the scene.
Owens fled the scene, struggled with an officer (Officer Simpson) during a later attempted detention, attempted to seize the officer’s gun, and escaped; the officer testified about the assault.
Procedural posture: Fourteenth Court of Appeals affirmed Owens’s conviction in an unpublished opinion; Owens sought discretionary review claiming the court failed to consider the totality of evidence on legal sufficiency.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Legal sufficiency: whether evidence proves Owens formed intent to rob before or at the time of the murder	Owens: jury could not reliably find intent to rob was formed before/during murder; robbery may have been an afterthought	State: evidence (demands for money, ruffling pockets, possession of knife, flight) permits reasonable inference of intent to rob before/during killing	Court: Overruled Owens; evidence sufficient for a rational jury to find intent to rob formed before/during the murder
Admission of extraneous-offense evidence (Officer Simpson’s testimony about resisting arrest/assault)	Owens: testimony was unfairly prejudicial under Tex. R. Evid. 403 and should have been excluded	State: testimony was highly probative (proximity, possession of weapon, flight, consciousness of guilt); limited and brief testimony; jury instructed on extraneous offenses	Court: No abuse of discretion; probative value not substantially outweighed by unfair prejudice

Conner v. State, 67 S.W.3d 192 (Tex. Crim. App. 2001) (intent to rob must be formed before or at the time of the murder for capital-murder-in-course-of-robbery)
Herrin v. State, 125 S.W.3d 436 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002) (robbery as an afterthought is insufficient to prove capital murder)
Guzman v. State, 955 S.W.2d 85 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997) (appellate review requires consideration of the totality of the evidence)
Whatley v. State, 445 S.W.3d 159 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014) (standard for legal-sufficiency review and deference to jury resolution of conflicting inferences)
Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (U.S. 1979) (constitutional standard for sufficiency of the evidence)