William Ray Phillips v. State, 10-15-00077-CR

William Ray Phillips was indicted for solicitation to commit capital murder after attempting to hire a hitman to kill Judge Matt Johnson; jury convicted and sentenced to 80 years.
The State filed notice of extraneous offenses alleging Phillips’ prior convictions for child pornography and failure to register as a sex offender.
During jailhouse encounters and recorded communications, Phillips expressed desires to have Judge Johnson killed, offered $30,000, and wrote letters referencing violence; an ATF agent posing as a hitman recorded Philips’ statements.
At trial, testimony also included Phillips’ alleged statements about wanting to kill U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. and McLennan County DA Abel Reyna; defense sought to exclude those references as impermissible extraneous-offense evidence.
The trial court allowed some references but grants only limited running objections; some testimony referencing the other proposed victims was later admitted without objection.
Phillips appealed raising (1) erroneous admission of extraneous-offense evidence and (2) that the jury charge improperly expanded permissible uses of that extraneous evidence.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Admission of evidence of statements about killing Judge Smith and DA Reyna	Phillips: admission of those statements was improper extraneous-offense evidence and prejudicial	State: evidence was admissible to show motive/intent and some references were harmless or cured by later unobjected testimony	Any initial error was cured because same evidence was later admitted without objection; alternatively any error was harmless given limiting instructions and overwhelming evidence of guilt
Jury charge expansion permitting use of extraneous-offense evidence for preparation/plan/absence of mistake	Phillips: charge improperly expanded admissibility beyond motive to other uses, prejudicing him	State: even if charge expanded admissibility, the error did not harm Phillips due to overwhelming evidence and repeated limiting instructions	Assuming arguable error, reversal not required — any harm was not shown under Almanza given evidence, instructions, and prosecutor’s limited use of the evidence

Luna v. State, 268 S.W.3d 594 (timely and specific objection required to preserve error)
Lane v. State, 151 S.W.3d 188 (error cured when same evidence later admitted without objection)
Leday v. State, 983 S.W.2d 713 (same-evidence-cures-error principle)
Motilla v. State, 78 S.W.3d 352 (non-constitutional evidentiary error analyzed for harm under Rule 44.2(b))
Rich v. State, 160 S.W.3d 575 (substantial-rights/harm analysis guidelines)
Almanza v. State, 686 S.W.2d 157 (standard for reviewing jury-charge error and harm analysis)
Barrios v. State, 283 S.W.3d 348 (Almanza application)
Gamboa v. State, 296 S.W.3d 574 (presumption juries follow limiting instructions)
Moreno v. State, 858 S.W.2d 453 (inchoate thoughts not necessarily extraneous offenses under Rule 404(b))