Affirm and Opinion Filed June 30, 2023

In The

Court of Appeals

Fifth District of Texas at Dallas

No. 05-22-00714-CR

MIGUEL ANGEL VILLAREAL-GARCIA, Appellant

V.

THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

On Appeal from the 416th Judicial District Court

Collin County, Texas

Trial Court Cause No. 416-82170-2022

OPINION

Before Justices Reichek, Nowell, and Garcia

Opinion by Justice Nowell

A jury convicted appellant Miguel Villareal-Garcia of online solicitation of a 

minor and sentenced him to five years in prison. In a single issue, he argues the trial 

court abused its discretion by allowing an unqualified witness to provide unreliable 

expert testimony regarding cellphone data extraction and admitting the extracted text 

messages into evidence. We adopt the Fort Worth Court of Appeals’ reasoning in 

Wright v. State, 618 S.W.3d 887 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2021, no pet.), wherein
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the court concluded the State was not required to establish a Kelly-style reliability1

predicate through expert testimony “for such a basic technique.” We affirm the trial 

court’s judgment.

Background

Officer Lee McMillan worked in the child exploitation unit with the Collin 

County Sheriff’s Office. As part of an undercover operation, he took a photograph 

of an adult female coworker and used age regression software to create a photograph 

of a fifteen-year-old girl. He placed the photograph on several websites using the 

name “Peyton” and provided his contact number. 

Around October 1, 2021, appellant first texted “Peyton,” and the two 

continued exchanging text messages for the next several weeks. Appellant asked if 

she wanted to make love, and she answered, “I’m up for making love if you’re okay 

I’m 15.” She also told appellant she did not want to get “preggers” so he would need 

to use a condom or get Plan B. Appellant acknowledged “Peyton” was fifteen and 

wanted to “do the love with” her but did not want to go to jail because of her age.

On October 26, 2021, appellant and “Peyton” arranged to meet at a park near 

her home that “ha[d] places we can hide.” Appellant asked for directions, confirmed 

 

1

In Kelly v. State, 824 S.W.2d 568 (Tex. Crim. App. 1992), the court explained that evidence derived 

from a scientific theory must satisfy three requirements to be considered reliable: (1) the underlying 

scientific theory must be valid; (2) the technique applying the theory must be valid; and (3) the technique 

must have been properly applied on the occasion in question. Id. at 573.
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he had Plan B, and texted when he was two minutes from the park. “Peyton” said 

she could not wait to see him and asked what kind of car he would be driving. 

Appellant was arrested at the park. When he was apprehended, officers 

recovered cellphones from his pocket. Officer McMillan extracted data from one of 

appellant’s cellphones using Cellebrite and Magnet Axiom software. The State 

indicted appellant for online solicitation of a minor based on the text messages. 

The trial court conducted a rule 702 hearing to determine the admissibility of 

the text messages. During the hearing, Officer McMillan explained, among other 

things, his qualifications and Cellebrite software.

At the end of the hearing, defense counsel objected to Officer McMillan’s 

expert testimony because (1) the science had not been sufficiently peer reviewed, 

and (2) he did not believe “it’s reliable just because he says it is” or because of his 

educational background “when this field is so relatively new and not been tested by 

the Court for its reliability.” The State responded Officer McMillan had testified in 

hundreds of cases regarding the technology and “obviously [has] the training and 

experience in computer work. He is the leader in this county in the investigation, 

and we would offer that he is absolutely an expert and has been proven by the peers 

of this county at least.” The trial court overruled appellant’s objections and allowed 

the text messages into evidence. The text messages were the only evidence linking 

appellant to the crime. 
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The jury convicted appellant and sentenced him to five years in prison. This 

appeal followed. 

Discussion 

In a single issue, appellant argues the trial court abused its discretion by 

admitting the text messages into evidence. The State responds copying text 

messages from a cellphone to a computer is a simple task that does not require expert 

testimony. It encourages the Court to adopt the Fort Worth Court of Appeals’ 

reasoning in Wright v. State, 618 S.W.3d 887, 893 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2021, 

no pet.), in which the court concluded expert testimony is unnecessary to establish 

the reliability of Cellebrite software, and data extracted from the software can be 

authenticated instead under Texas Rule of Evidence 901. 

We review a trial court’s decision to admit or exclude evidence for an abuse 

of discretion. Colone v. State, 573 S.W.3d 249, 264–65 (Tex. Crim. App. 2019). A 

trial court does not abuse its discretion if the decision to admit evidence is within the 

zone of reasonable disagreement. Beham v. State, 559 S.W.3d 474, 478 (Tex. Crim. 

App. 2018). If the trial court’s ruling on admissibility is correct under any applicable 

theory of law, the trial court’s decision should not be disturbed, even if the trial court 

gives the wrong reason for its ruling. Johnson v. State, 490 S.W.3d 895, 908 (Tex. 

Crim. App. 2016). 

Appellant argues Officer McMillan’s “generalist computer science degree” 

failed to establish he understood the techniques to extract cellphone data; he did not 
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have a clear understanding of the underlying technique for reliable data extraction; 

and there was no evidence in the record that he used any peer-reviewed methodology

or that any such methodology had been accepted within a given field. 

We agree the Fort Worth Court of Appeals’ decision in Wright is analytically 

sound and adopt its reasoning. As the court explained, “One purpose served by the 

[Kelly] reliability requirement is to ensure that complex or unfamiliar systems and 

ideas—those that ‘require significant expertise to interpret’ or that are ‘based on 

scientific theory’—do not lead the lay fact-finder astray.” Wright, 618 S.W.3d at 

893 (quoting Osbourn v. State, 92 S.W.3d 531, 537 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002)). The 

court reasoned that using Cellebrite technology to transfer data was “so simple” and 

“so plainly verifiable and free of scientific variability, that a lay witness’s 

corroboration of the results based on personal knowledge would sufficiently guard 

against misleading the fact-finder, even without an expert or a reliability predicate.” 

Id.2 Thus, so long as the data extracted from the cellphone was properly 

authenticated by lay testimony, no reliability predicate or expert testimony was 

required. Id.; see also TEX. R. EVID. 901(b)(9) (explaining evidence about a process 

 

2

In reaching this conclusion, the court also found support in several analogous federal cases. See 

United States v. Montijo-Maysonet, 974 F.3d 34, 47 (1st Cir. 2020) (“You don’t need to be a software 

engineer to pick up a cellphone, open a messaging application, and interpret the words in the bubbles as 

messages sent and received.”); United States v. Marsh, 568 F. App’x 15, 17 (2d Cir. 2014) (order) (federal 

agent’s testimony about Cellebrite data extraction did not cross the line into expert testimony for which a 

reliability predicate would be required because testimony did not turn on or require technical understanding 

of the programming); United States v. Seugasala, 702 F. App’x 572, 575 (9th Cir. 2017) (excusing a 

detective’s testimony regarding Cellebrite from rule 702’s expert-testimony requirements because 

testimony not based on technical or specialized knowledge). 
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or system may be authenticated by “describing a process or system and showing that 

it produces an accurate result”). The court subsequently upheld the trial court’s

admission of the text messages and photos extracted from the cellphone because the 

detective authenticated the evidence under rule 901(b)(9). Wright, 618 S.W.3d at 

894.

Applying the Wright analysis, we conclude the trial court did not abuse its 

discretion by admitting the text messages from appellant’s cellphone. Officer 

McMillan testified he understood how to create and read mobile forensic 

examination reports through his Cellebrite certification and explained he used 

Cellebrite to create the mobile forensic report of appellant’s cellphone activity. He 

explained the Cellebrite software used a transfer protocol to transfer the data from 

the cellphone. Officer McMillan could not say with certainty Cellebrite extracted 

all the data from appellant’s cellphone because every phone model is different and 

no software can keep up with the constant availability of new apps. He did, however,

confirm the method of extracting the text messages using Cellebrite was 

“straightforward,” and the software extracted all the text messages from appellant’s 

phone. He compared the data through “hashing,” and his comparison “looked 

complete so [he] didn’t do anything else beyond using Cellebrite.” He confirmed 

all of the extracted text messages were true and accurate copies of the texts on 

appellant’s cellphone. He explained that once he extracted the data, he compared it 

to a known sent text message and confirmed the data’s accuracy. Officer 
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McMillan’s testimony provided the corroboration that the information was correct.3 

He then used another program called Magnet Axiom to convert the extracted data 

into a more readable format for the average person. He gave this information to the 

District Attorney in a PDF format and on a USB drive. This testimony sufficiently 

authenticated the extracted data through lay testimony to satisfy rule 901(b)(9). See

TEX. R. EVID. 901(b)(9); see also Wright, 618 S.W.3d at 894. 

Accordingly, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by overruling 

appellant’s objections and admitting the text messages into evidence. We overrule 

appellant’s sole issue.

Conclusion

We affirm the trial court’s judgment.

220714f.p05

Publish

TEX. R. APP. P. 47.2(b)

 

3 Appellant was free to, but did not, put on evidence that the transfer or the resulting data was in fact 

tainted, manipulated, or fabricated.

/Erin A. Nowell//

ERIN A. NOWELL

JUSTICE
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Court of Appeals

Fifth District of Texas at Dallas

JUDGMENT

MIGUEL ANGEL VILLAREALGARCIA, Appellant

No. 05-22-00714-CR V.

THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

On Appeal from the 416th Judicial 

District Court, Collin County, Texas

Trial Court Cause No. 416-82170-

2022.

Opinion delivered by Justice Nowell. 

Justices Reichek and Garcia 

participating.

Based on the Court’s opinion of this date, the judgment of the trial court is 

AFFIRMED.

Judgment entered this 30th day of June, 2023.