Sammy Lee Smith, Jr. v. State, 10-14-00268-CR

Sammy Lee Smith Jr., an African-American, was convicted by a jury in McLennan County for making a terroristic threat under Tex. Penal Code § 22.07(a)(2).
Incident: security chief Darrell Allen (moonlighting at Club Crush) ordered Smith to leave after an altercation; Allen testified Smith refused, used racial epithets, and threatened to "find me on Facebook and fuck me up" and to put a gun in his face; officers found no weapon in the vehicle.
Smith testified and offered witnesses who denied the threats; the jury credited Allen’s testimony over defense witnesses.
Smith raised three appellate issues: (1) jury charge error—definition of "intentionally," (2) Batson challenge to the State’s peremptory strike of Juror No. 2, and (3) sufficiency of the evidence.
The trial court overruled Smith’s Batson objection and submitted the case to the jury; the court of appeals reviewed the Batson ruling deferentially and assessed charge error under Almanza and sufficiency under Jackson/Hooper.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (Smith)	Defendant's Argument (State)	Held
Jury-charge definition of “intentionally”	The statutory offense is conduct-oriented; the court’s untailored definition improperly includes result-focused language and could mislead the jury.	The application paragraph tracked the statute and limited the jury to the charged offense; any abstract language was harmless.	No reversible error; any definitional error was harmless under Almanza.
Batson challenge to peremptory strike of Juror No. 2	The State’s race-neutral reasons (juror sleeping; occupation) were pretextual and inaccurate.	Prosecutors noted contemporaneous notes that Juror No. 2 appeared to sleep and that his occupation (pastor) could bias him; sleeping and occupation are race-neutral reasons.	Denial of Batson challenge sustained; trial court’s credibility determination not clearly erroneous.
Sufficiency of the evidence	Testimony had gaps; Allen’s credibility questioned; no weapon found—evidence insufficient to prove terroristic threat beyond reasonable doubt.	Allen’s testimony supported that Smith threatened imminent serious bodily injury and the jury is entitled to weigh credibility.	Evidence sufficient; a rational factfinder could convict beyond a reasonable doubt.

Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (prohibits race-based peremptory strikes)
Purkett v. Elem, 514 U.S. 765 (Batson three-step framework)
Grant v. State, 325 S.W.3d 655 (deference to trial court in Batson credibility determinations)
Watkins v. State, 245 S.W.3d 444 (reviewing Batson explanations with great deference)
Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (standard for sufficiency review)
Hooper v. State, 214 S.W.3d 9 (circumstantial evidence standard equals direct evidence)
Lucio v. State, 351 S.W.3d 878 (summarizes sufficiency standard in Texas)
Almanza v. State, 686 S.W.2d 157 (harmless-error standard for jury-charge objections)
Chambers v. State, 805 S.W.2d 459 (jury’s province to judge witness credibility)
Malik v. State, 953 S.W.2d 234 (elements measured by hypothetically correct jury charge)