Price, Eric Ray, 2015 Tex. Crim. App. LEXIS 389

Jury convicted appellant of third-degree-felony family-violence assault by strangulation.
Charge relied on relationship with victim under Texas Family Code and conduct by choking/strangling.
Court of Appeals affirmed; held assault by occlusion is a result-of-conduct offense and rejected nature-of-conduct tailoring.
Statutory gravamen is bodily injury; enhancement arises from strangulation within a family relationship.
Texas Penal Code sections 22.01(a)(1) and (b)(2)(B) define the offense and its gravamen; gravamen centers on the result of causing injury.
Court granted review on whether assault by occlusion is both result-oriented and conduct-oriented and whether jury charge needed nature-of-conduct language.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether assault by occlusion is a result- or conduct-oriented offense.	Appellant: gravamen includes nature of conduct (strangulation)	State: offense is result-of-conduct; no nature-of-conduct tailoring required	Offense is result-of-conduct; no error in omitting nature-of-conduct language

McQueen v. State, 781 S.W.2d 600 (Tex.Crim.App.1989) (when acts are criminalized by nature, culpability must attach to the conduct itself)
Cook v. State, 884 S.W.2d 485 (Tex.Crim.App.1994) (error to apply abstract culpable-mental-state definitions to nature-of-conduct elements)
Alvarado v. State, 704 S.W.2d 36 (Tex.Crim.App.1985) (gravamen governs tailoring of culpable mental states to the result of conduct)
Landrian v. State, 268 S.W.3d 532 (Tex.Crim.App.2008) (bodily-injury assault is a result-oriented offense; gravamen is the result)
Jefferson v. State, 189 S.W.3d 305 (Tex.Crim.App.2006) (prepositional phrases describing conduct are not gravamen; unanimity not tied to them)
Gant v. State, 606 S.W.2d 867 (Tex.Crim.App.1980) (illustrates elements vs. gravamen analysis in offense structure)
Plata v. State, 926 S.W.2d 300 (Tex.Crim.App.1996) (superficial abstraction in charge generally not reversible error)