Taylor Dwayne Dering v. State, 465 S.W.3d 668

Appellant Taylor Dering pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault of an elderly person; he elected jury punishment and was sentenced to 80 years and fined $8,700.
Before trial, Dering moved to transfer venue from Jones County, relying on pretrial publicity and social-media commentary as evidence of community prejudice.
At the venue hearing Dering admitted nine newspaper clippings and proffered Facebook comments posted by third parties on a third party’s account; the sponsoring witness was a friend who did not own the account or most posters’ accounts.
The State objected to the Facebook posts for lack of authentication; the trial court sustained the objection and reserved ruling on the motion until after voir dire.
After approximately 1.5 days of voir dire (106 seated veniremembers; over 400 summoned), only two jurors recalled media exposure; the trial court denied the transfer, finding no overwhelming local prejudice.
On appeal Dering argued the court erred by refusing to consider the social-media commentary due to improper authentication; the Court of Appeals affirmed.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the trial court erred by excluding third‑party Facebook posts for lack of authentication in ruling on venue transfer	Dering: the Facebook commentary demonstrated pervasive local prejudice and should have been considered	State: the posts were not properly authenticated—owner/posters did not testify and sponsoring witness lacked foundation	Court: exclusion proper under Tienda standards; even if erroneous, exclusion was harmless given voir dire and juror responses; denial of venue transfer affirmed

Wall v. State, 184 S.W.3d 730 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006) (abuse of discretion standard for evidentiary rulings)
Gonzalez v. State, 195 S.W.3d 114 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006) (appellate review may be affirmed on any correct legal theory supported by the record)
Tienda v. State, 358 S.W.3d 633 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012) (social‑media authentication standard; circumstantial linking may suffice to submit authenticity to jury)
Solomon v. State, 49 S.W.3d 356 (Tex. Crim. App. 2001) (nonconstitutional error reversal standard)
Rich v. State, 160 S.W.3d 575 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005) (harm analysis for erroneous admission/exclusion examines the whole record)
Melgar v. State, 236 S.W.3d 302 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2007) (discussing nonconstitutional error governed by Rule 44.2(b))