Affirmed and Memorandum Opinion filed August 20, 2024.

In The

Fourteenth Court of Appeals

NO. 14-23-00222-CR

COURTNEY CORTEZ HALL, Appellant

V.

THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

On Appeal from the 179th District Court

Harris County, Texas

Trial Court Cause No. 1666728

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Appellant Courtney Cortez Hall appeals his conviction for capital murder. 

In his first two issues, appellant argues that the trial court erred in allowing a 

prosecution witness to discuss appellant’s “bad character” as well as an extraneous 

offense. In his final three issues, appellant contends that his trial counsel provided 

ineffective assistance by eliciting this extraneous offense and character evidence 

and by failing to request an instruction to disregard the evidence. We overrule 

appellant’s first two issues because we conclude that the admission of the 
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evidence, even if error, was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. We overrule 

appellant’s remaining issues because appellant has not established prejudice for his 

ineffective-assistance claim.

We affirm.

Background

The State indicted appellant for murder in the course of committing robbery, 

a capital offense. See Tex. Penal Code § 19.03(a)(2). The victim/decedent was 

Magdaleno Ramos, who owned and operated a scrap metal business. One 

morning, while customer Willie Terrell was loading scrap metal onto a scale, he 

heard a gunshot. Someone had shot Ramos in the chest. The bullet, after 

perforating Ramos’s skin, went through his ribs, his heart, a portion of his liver, 

and his aorta, and then entered his spine. The wound was immediately fatal. 

When officers responded to the scene, Ramos’s bank bag was found empty.

Ramos usually had about $5,000 on hand to pay customers in cash. 

After hearing the gunshot, Terrell immediately attempted to leave in his car. 

Then, as Terrell testified, “[s]omeone got in the backseat of [his] car with all black 

on.” The person had a mask over his face and wore gloves. Terrell described the 

suspect as a Black male, wearing a black hoodie with the hood up over his head, 

blue jeans, and a cloth face covering. Terrell did not identify appellant as the 

shooter. 

Surveillance video from a nearby gas station showed “a male kind of 

walking fast, dressed all in black.” Video from a nearby residence showed a 

person who “dropped something on the side of the street.” Police later recovered a 

black ski mask from the area. Forensics did not match any DNA to appellant.
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The investigating officer, Detective Jack Ferrell, did not have a suspect after 

the shooting, but he received an anonymous Crime Stoppers tip approximately a 

year later, giving the officer appellant’s name and phone number and the name of 

appellant’s ex-girlfriend, Taleana Kelley, who Detective Ferrell interviewed. 

Appellant and Kelley began dating in 2017 and were dating at the time of the 

offense. The morning of the shooting, Kelley dropped appellant off at a gas station 

near the scrap yard. She believed he was wearing blue jeans and a gray hoodie. 

She went back home and went back to sleep. Appellant later called her to come 

pick him up from a friend’s apartment. He was sweaty and was no longer wearing 

the gray hoodie. They returned home, where appellant asked Kelley for a trash 

bag, which he took with him into the bathroom. He came out of the bedroom, 

wearing different clothes, and disposed of the trash bag without Kelley seeing what 

was inside.

While watching television, the couple saw a news report of Ramos’s 

shooting, and appellant kept saying, “I hope he okay. I hope he okay.” Appellant 

told Kelley that he “walked to the man and that he shot the man. He said, ‘It was 

going to be him or me.’ He thought the man had a gun.” She heard appellant tell 

his cousin Chris about the shooting. Kelley also saw appellant with a large amount 

of cash.

Kelley’s cell phone records corroborated much of her story regarding her 

movements on the morning of the shooting. Additionally, appellant’s cell phone 

records showing his location on the day of the shooting were consistent with the 

location of the gas station and the scrap yard, as well as with the location of the 

suspect shown on a surveillance video walking through the surrounding 

neighborhood and making a phone call at the same time that Kelley received a call 
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from appellant. Appellant’s cell phone data was also consistent with his place of 

employment, but appellant denied being at work the day of the shooting. 

Appellant’s cousin, Johnathan Wallace, testified. Wallace spoke with 

appellant the day before the murder. Appellant wanted Wallace to go with him to 

the scrap yard. According to Wallace, appellant planned to rob the owner of the 

scrap yard. Wallace refused to go because he “had parole the next day.” When 

Wallace saw the news story, he called appellant, who confessed to shooting 

Ramos. Although Wallace never reached out to police, Detective Ferrell spoke to 

Wallace eighteen months later, and at that point Wallace felt as though he did not 

have any choice but to tell what he knew. 

When asked why he never contacted the police, Wallace said it “blew [his]

mind” that appellant could do something like that:

Because my mind was blown because in the family, we -- we don’t 

make moves like that. You know, we smart. We better than that. So 

that’s why my mind was blew at the time, because we don’t make 

decisions like that. We make wise decisions.

Appellant’s counsel then asked, “And it’s not a wise decision to go out and 

murder somebody?” Wallace said, “No, that’s not a very wise decision.” Counsel 

continued, “Because that’s well beyond what Courtney usually does, right?” 

Wallace answered, “Yeah, yeah.” Counsel asked, “Courtney’s never been 

violent?” Wallace did not answer before counsel approached the bench for a 

conference. 

At the bench, the State argued that appellant’s counsel had opened the door 

to the fact that appellant was on parole for aggravated robbery at the time of 

Ramos’s murder and that appellant and Wallace had attempted to commit an 

aggravated robbery a few weeks prior to the offense. 
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Appellant’s counsel explained that he was “only trying to elicit [Wallace’s] 

opinion of Courtney.” The judge said that his questioning opened the door:

If the question is you’re seeking his opinion about whether he was 

violent in nature with that question, if the State has information that 

he, along with Mr. Hall, have engaged in activity that one would 

consider violent, they’re entitled to -- I would -- it would be the 

Court’s position they will be entitled to ask him because that, too, is a 

part of his opinion that you were seeking to elicit.

The court admonished the State, however, that it could not elicit the fact that 

appellant was on parole:

If what the State intends to do is offer evidence that -- based on what 

[defense counsel’s] question was, about whether he would go beyond 

that, and in his representation to the Court that he was intending to 

elicit from this witness his opinion as far as whether he would engage 

in violent conduct, you may ask those – you may ask questions to 

respond to that; but the fact that he was on parole is of no moment.

Following the bench conference, the State developed testimony from 

Wallace about a planned, but unconsummated, robbery a few weeks before the 

charged offense: “Well, we supposed to hit a scrap yard, some kind of metal place. 

But . . . we didn’t go through with it.” Wallace admitted that the plan was to use 

guns during the robbery. Wallace also testified that appellant committed an 

aggravated robbery of a “beauty supply or something” with his brother a few years 

prior but he did not provide any additional details.

At the conclusion of trial, the jury found appellant guilty as charged in the 

indictment. He automatically received a sentence of life in prison without parole. 

Appellant did not file a motion for new trial but timely filed this appeal.
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Analysis

A. Admission of Evidence 

In his first two issues, appellant argues that the trial court erred by allowing 

Wallace to testify about appellant’s “inadmissible prior conviction” and about 

appellant’s bad character.

Generally, extraneous offense evidence is not admissible at the guilt phase 

of trial to prove that a defendant committed the charged offense in conformity with 

his own bad character. Tex. R. Evid. 404(b). However, otherwise inadmissible 

evidence may be admitted if the party against whom the evidence is offered “opens 

the door.” Schutz v. State, 957 S.W.2d 52, 71 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997). The State 

and appellant dispute whether appellant’s counsel opened the door to Wallace’s 

testimony about (1) appellant’s conviction for aggravated robbery of a “beauty 

supply,” and (2) appellant’s and Wallace’s planned, but unconsummated, robbery 

of the scrap yard.

We will assume for the sake of argument that counsel did not open the door 

to Wallace’s challenged testimony, which was inadmissible. We nonetheless hold 

that the trial court’s error, if any, is not reversible.

The trial court’s erroneous admission of the challenged evidence does not 

result in constitutional error; therefore, we disregard it if the defendant’s 

substantial rights were not affected. See Tex. R. App. P. 44.2(b) (nonconstitutional 

error standard); Garcia v. State, 126 S.W.3d 921, 927 (Tex. Crim. App. 2004); 

Johnson v. State, 967 S.W.2d 410, 417 (Tex. Crim. App. 1998).

A substantial right is implicated when the trial court’s error had a substantial 

or injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict. Schmutz v. State, 

440 S.W.3d 29, 39 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014); Garcia, 126 S.W.3d at 927. In 
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assessing the likelihood that the jury’s decision was adversely affected by the 

claimed error, we must consider the entire record, including all the evidence 

presented at trial, the nature of the evidence supporting the jury’s verdict, the 

character of the alleged error and how it might be considered together with the 

other evidence in the case, the trial court’s instructions to the jury, and whether the 

evidence of the defendant’s guilt is overwhelming. Motilla v. State, 78 S.W.3d 

352, 355-58 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002); see also Solomon v. State, 49 S.W.3d 356, 

365 (Tex. Crim. App. 2001). Further, in making that determination, we are not 

concerned with whether there was sufficient evidence on which the defendant 

could have been convicted, but rather whether there is a reasonable possibility that 

the erroneously admitted evidence might have contributed to the defendant’s 

conviction. See Lopez v. State, 288 S.W.3d 148, 178 (Tex. App.—Corpus ChristiEdinburg 2009, pet. ref’d). Therefore, reversal is not required if, after reviewing 

the entire record, we have fair assurance that the error did not influence the jury’s 

verdict or had only a slight effect. Motilla, 78 S.W.3d at 355; Johnson, 967 

S.W.2d at 417.

After a careful review of the record, we have fair assurance that the 

admission of appellant’s extraneous bad acts did not influence the jury’s verdict in 

this case or had but a slight effect. Kelley testified unequivocally that appellant 

confessed to the crime. Both her and appellant’s cell phone records corroborated 

Kelley’s story that she dropped appellant off near the scrap yard on the morning of 

the shooting. Further, Wallace testified without objection that appellant called him 

the day before the murder and asked him to accompany appellant to a scrap yard: 

“He told me we was going to rob the man.” Wallace also testified without 

objection that appellant confessed to shooting Ramos.
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Appellant characterizes Kelley as “an angry ex-girlfriend” and Wallace as 

“an incarcerated cousin.” The testimony from these “dubious witnesses,” appellant 

continues, is “far from overwhelming.” Instead of crediting the evidence from 

Kelley and Wallace, appellant argues that we should instead focus on Terrell’s 

testimony that he did not believe appellant to be the shooter and the fact that there 

was no DNA evidence linking appellant to the crime.1

 Appellant’s argument 

ignores that the jury is the sole judge of the weight of the evidence and credibility 

of the witnesses. Edward v. State, 635 S.W.3d 649, 655 (Tex. Crim. App. 2021). 

When faced with conflicts in the evidence, a reviewing court shall presume that the 

fact finder resolved those conflicts in favor of the verdict and defer to that 

determination. Temple v. State, 390 S.W.3d 341, 360 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013). 

The jury reasonably could have believed Kelley’s and Wallace’s unobjected-to 

testimony, as well as the other evidence linking appellant to the crime.

Moreover, the State did not refer to the extraneous bad acts during the 

remainder of the trial or during closing argument, which weighs against a finding 

that appellant’s substantial rights were affected. See Lester v. State, 889 S.W.2d 

592, 594 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1994, pet. ref’d) (“Because the 

prosecutor did not mention the extraneous offense in her closing argument, the 

jurors probably gave little weight to it.”). Based on the strength of the evidence of 

appellant’s guilt, Wallace’s brief testimony about the extraneous robbery and 

“planned” robbery is insubstantial in light of the record as a whole. See Prior v. 

State, 647 S.W.2d 956, 960 (Tex. Crim. App. 1983) (holding that the erroneous 

1 Terrell’s testimony was inconsistent on this point. For instance, Terrell testified that 

appellant was “not the man” who jumped into his car. However, Terrell also testified that he 

“couldn’t see no skin whatsoever, just eyes,” and he did not “even look at [the shooter] in the 

eyes.” Terrell did not see the man’s face but the man was “very thin.” Judging from appellant’s 

size at trial, Terrell did not think that appellant was the suspect, unless appellant had gained a lot 

of weight. Kelley testified that appellant used to be much skinnier than he was at trial.
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admission of extraneous offense evidence was harmless); Nguyen v. State, ---

S.W.3d---, 2024 WL 629109, at *5 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] Feb. 15, 

2024, no pet.) (admission of extraneous offenses, if error, was harmless); Ruiz v. 

State, 631 S.W.3d 841, 863-64 (Tex. App.—Eastland 2021, pet. ref’d) (erroneous 

admission of extraneous bad acts was harmless). Therefore, we conclude that the 

trial court’s admission of this evidence did not affect appellant’s substantial rights. 

We overrule appellant’s first two issues on appeal.

B. Ineffective Assistance of Counsel 

In his remaining issues, appellant argues that his counsel provided 

constitutionally ineffective assistance in three ways: opening the door to the 

extraneous offense evidence; failing to object to the extraneous offense evidence; 

and failing to request an instruction to disregard Wallace’s answer regarding 

appellant’s extraneous offenses.

We examine claims of ineffective assistance of counsel under the familiar 

two-prong standard set forth in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984). 

See Robison v. State, 461 S.W.3d 194, 202 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 

2015, pet. ref’d). A criminal defendant must prove that his trial counsel’s 

representation was deficient and that the deficient performance was so serious that 

it deprived him of a fair trial. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 687. Counsel’s 

representation is deficient if it falls below an objective standard of reasonableness. 

Id. at 688. But a deficient performance will deprive the defendant of a fair trial 

only if it prejudices the defense. Id. at 691-92. To demonstrate prejudice, the 

defendant must show a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s 

unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. Id.

at 694. Failure to make the required showing of either deficient performance or 

sufficient prejudice defeats a claim of ineffectiveness. Id. at 697.
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We need not decide whether counsel’s actions or omissions constituted 

deficient performance because appellant has not demonstrated prejudice on this 

record. See id. (“[A] court need not determine whether counsel’s performance was 

deficient before examining the prejudice suffered by the defendant as a result of 

the alleged deficiencies. . . . If it is easier to dispose of an ineffectiveness claim on 

the ground of lack of sufficient prejudice, . . . that course should be followed.”).

As discussed above, the admission of the extraneous offense evidence was 

harmless—i.e., it did not influence the jury’s verdict or had but little effect. Thus, 

counsel’s alleged deficiency in eliciting the evidence, failing to object to its 

admission, or failing to request a limiting instruction cannot have prejudiced 

appellant—i.e., there is not a reasonable probability that the result of the 

proceeding would have been different had that evidence not been admitted or the 

jury been told to disregard it. See Ex parte Martinez, 330 S.W.3d 891, 903 (Tex. 

Crim. App. 2011) (“[T]he Strickland prejudice prong applied today presents a 

more difficult burden than does the harm analysis under Rule 44.2 of the Texas 

Rules of Appellate Procedure.”) 

We conclude that appellant has not met his burden of proving by a 

preponderance of the evidence that his counsel was constitutionally ineffective.

See Clay v. State, Nos. 02-22-00148-150-CR, 2023 WL 5766140, at *6 (Tex. 

App.—Fort Worth Sept. 7, 2023, pet. ref’d) (mem. op., not designated for 

publication) (if erroneous admission of evidence is harmless, defendant cannot 

show prejudice under Strickland); Samarripas v. State, 438 S.W.3d 673, 676 (Tex. 

App.—San Antonio 2014, no pet.) (“Because we do not believe appellant has 

shown the outcome of the trial probably would have been different but for his trial 

counsel’s actions [in eliciting testimony about extraneous offenses], we conclude 
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appellant did not demonstrate he received ineffective assistance of counsel under 

these circumstances.”).

We overrule appellant’s third, fourth, and fifth issues.

Conclusion

We affirm the trial court’s judgment.

_____/s/ Kevin Jewell____________

Kevin Jewell

Justice

Panel consists of Justices Jewell, Zimmerer, and Hassan.

Do Not Publish — Tex. R. App. P. 47.2(b).