Robert Vajda v. State, 09-16-00372-CR

Robert Vajda was convicted by a jury of three counts of aggravated sexual assault of his former stepdaughter, S.D.; sentences of 99 years were ordered to run concurrently.
Alleged assaults occurred when S.D. was between about 7–12; she first disclosed the abuse years later and CPS investigated.
Law enforcement seized an external hard drive, a laptop, and a desktop from an office in Vajda’s home; a Homeland Security forensic examiner found thousands of child-pornography images on the external drive.
Forensic testimony showed the computers had at some point accessed the external drive; files on the drive included items (e.g., a resume, a folder labeled “Rob”) suggesting a link to Vajda.
The trial court held a pretrial hearing, admitted a limited number of the pornographic images under Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 38.37, and the jury convicted Vajda.
Vajda appealed arguing (1) admission of the child-pornography images was more prejudicial than probative and insufficiently linked to him, and (2) ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to object to prosecutorial characterizations.

Issue	Vajda's Argument	State's Argument	Held
Admissibility of child-pornography images from external drive	Images were inadmissible because the State failed to show Vajda possessed them; more prejudicial than probative	Article 38.37 allows admitting other-act sexual-character evidence in child-sex cases; circumstantial evidence tied the drive to Vajda	Court affirmed admission: circumstantial evidence (purchase, location in his office, files labeled with his name, testimony about his reaction, computers accessing drive, undeleted files) supported possession and probative value outweighed prejudice
Ineffective assistance of counsel for failure to object to prosecutor’s character-based comments	Counsel was ineffective for not objecting to prosecutor’s alleged personal attacks and emotive argument at punishment	Record lacks developed evidence (no motion alleging IAC, no evidentiary hearing) to overcome presumption of reasonable strategy	Court declined to find IAC on direct appeal; held record inadequate to show deficient performance and denied relief without prejudice to post-conviction writ

Devoe v. State, 354 S.W.3d 457 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011) (general rule excluding extraneous-offense character evidence)
Wise v. State, 364 S.W.3d 900 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012) (present-possession approach to files on storage devices)
Krause v. State, 243 S.W.3d 95 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2007) (circumstantial evidence supports inference of deliberate saving of pornographic files)
Tate v. State, 500 S.W.3d 410 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016) (circumstantial evidence can be as probative as direct evidence)
Gigliobianco v. State, 210 S.W.3d 637 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006) (Rule 403 balancing factors)
Henley v. State, 493 S.W.3d 77 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016) (abuse-of-discretion standard for evidentiary rulings)
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (U.S. 1984) (two-prong ineffective-assistance standard)
Goodspeed v. State, 187 S.W.3d 390 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005) (insufficient direct-appeal record often precludes IAC relief)