Thornburgh, Robert Jr., PD-0230-15

In 2006 appellant Robert Thornburgh was accused and later convicted of two counts of sexual assault of a child arising from an alleged sexual relationship with a 14‑year‑old; the jury found him guilty and the trial court imposed consecutive life sentences.
Thornburgh denied the allegations and testified that the State's witnesses lied; there was conflicting testimony about trips to Abilene and other facts.
During the State's guilt‑innocence closing argument the prosecutor characterized Thornburgh as a “sociopath.”
Defense objected and moved for a mistrial and asked the jury be instructed to disregard; the trial court denied the mistrial and allowed the prosecutor to continue, stating counsel may argue reasonable inferences.
The Eleventh Court of Appeals affirmed, holding the “sociopath” remark was a permissible inference from conflicting testimony and the trial court’s comments merely stated a correct rule of law.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (Thornburgh)	Defendant's Argument (State)	Held
Whether Tex. Penal Code §22.011(a)(2) is facially unconstitutional	Thornburgh: statute lacks a culpable mental‑state and precludes mistake‑of‑fact defense; facial challenge	State: statute is constitutional; similar challenges have been rejected	Court: Issue forfeited at trial; appellate court declined review on merits and overruled the issue
Whether the prosecutor’s use of the epithet “sociopath” in closing was improper and warranted mistrial	Thornburgh: term was unsupported by testimony (no expert) and injected new, prejudicial characterization outside the record	State: prosecutor may argue reasonable inferences from conflicting testimony and impeach appellant’s credibility	Court: remark was a permissible reasonable inference from the evidence; denial of mistrial was not an abuse of discretion
Whether the trial judge’s remarks overruling the objection constituted an improper comment on the weight of the evidence	Thornburgh: judge’s comment endorsed the State’s characterization and diminished defense credibility	State: judge merely stated the correct rule that counsel may argue reasonable inferences and instructed jury that no sociopath definition was in evidence	Court: judge’s comments were not an impermissible comment that tainted the presumption of innocence; no reversible error

Shannon v. State, 942 S.W.2d 591 (Tex. Crim. App. 1996) (use of the term “sociopath” without supporting testimony is improper)
Brown v. State, 122 S.W.3d 794 (Tex. Crim. App. 2003) (trial judge must avoid remarks that convey opinion on weight of evidence)
Brown v. State, 270 S.W.3d 564 (Tex. Crim. App. 2008) (four permissible areas of jury argument and limits on counsel)
Freeman v. State, 340 S.W.3d 717 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011) (instruction to disregard can cure improper jury argument)
Mosley v. State, 983 S.W.2d 249 (Tex. Crim. App. 1998) (factors for evaluating mistrial requests and prejudice)
Berry v. State, 233 S.W.3d 847 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007) (framework for balancing severity, curative measures, and certainty of conviction when assessing jury‑argument harm)