IN THE

TENTH COURT OF APPEALS

No. 10-14-00015-CR

JENNIFER KELLY,

Appellant

v.

THE STATE OF TEXAS,

Appellee

From the 278th District Court

Madison County, Texas

Trial Court No. 13-11915-278-15

O P I N I O N

A jury convicted Appellant Jennifer Kelly of the offenses of trafficking of persons 

and compelling prostitution and assessed her punishment at fifteen and ten years’ 

imprisonment, respectively. This appeal ensued.

Sufficiency of the Evidence

In her first two issues, Kelly contends that the evidence was insufficient to 

support her convictions for trafficking of persons and compelling prostitution.
Kelly v. State Page 2

Standard of Review

The Court of Criminal Appeals has expressed our standard of review of a 

sufficiency issue as follows:

In determining whether the evidence is legally sufficient to support 

a conviction, a reviewing court must consider all of the evidence in the 

light most favorable to the verdict and determine whether, based on that 

evidence and reasonable inferences therefrom, a rational fact finder could 

have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. 

Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 318-19 (1979); Hooper v. State, 214 S.W.3d 9, 

13 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007). This "familiar standard gives full play to the 

responsibility of the trier of fact fairly to resolve conflicts in the testimony, 

to weigh the evidence, and to draw reasonable inferences from basic facts 

to ultimate facts." Jackson, 443 U.S. at 319. "Each fact need not point 

directly and independently to the guilt of the appellant, as long as the 

cumulative force of all the incriminating circumstances is sufficient to 

support the conviction." Hooper, 214 S.W.3d at 13.

Lucio v. State, 351 S.W.3d 878, 894 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011). 

If the record supports conflicting inferences, we must presume that the factfinder 

resolved the conflicts in favor of the prosecution and therefore defer to that 

determination. Jackson, 443 U.S. at 326. Further, direct and circumstantial evidence are 

treated equally: “Circumstantial evidence is as probative as direct evidence in 

establishing the guilt of an actor, and circumstantial evidence alone can be sufficient to 

establish guilt.” Hooper, 214 S.W.3d at 13. Finally, it is well established that the 

factfinder is entitled to judge the credibility of witnesses and can choose to believe all, 

some, or none of the testimony presented by the parties. Chambers v. State, 805 S.W.2d 

459, 461 (Tex. Crim. App. 1991).

The Evidence

The evidence presented in this case was as follows: Madisonville Police Officer 
Kelly v. State Page 3

Aaron Campbell testified that on April 26, 2013, the Department executed a search 

warrant at 702 East Collard Street in Madisonville, a residence known to be Kelly’s. 

Campbell took photographs of everything. The photographs showed three bedrooms, 

one of which was Kelly’s. Above Kelly’s bed was a photograph of M.M. Campbell 

stated that he believed the photograph was important because it verified that M.M. was 

connected with the residence.

Dorothy Carnal testified that both Kelly and Kelly’s mother took into their home 

people who had nowhere else to go. In fact, Carnal met Kelly in April 2012 when,

because Carnal had nowhere to go, Kelly said that she could stay in the home as long as 

she helped around the house and paid a little bit of money to Kelly’s mother if she 

could. Kelly usually took in females, and, besides Carnal, Kelly took in M.M., Nicole 

Shelton, Stephanie Stansbury, and Jessica Hoot. A man named Jason McKinney also 

lived there for about a month. Kelly would feed the people that she took in and buy 

clothes for them, if needed. This included M.M. M.M. needed things every now and 

then, and Kelly would help her if she could. 

Carnal testified that she met M.M. about a week after meeting Kelly in April 

2012. On the first or second day after meeting, M.M. asked Carnal to go to the park 

with her so that Carnal could be a lookout while M.M. had sex with a guy. Carnal said 

that M.M. would also “come looking for trouble” at the house. M.M. did not live at the 

house, but she did stay there every now and then. M.M. would come over to Kelly’s 

house and tell Kelly that she needed her to make phone calls to guys with whom she 

could have sex because she needed money. M.M. would have sex with the guys in the 
Kelly v. State Page 4

middle bedroom of the house and receive money from them. Carnal said that she did 

not know how much money M.M. got from the guys but that M.M. would always flash 

her money around in front of everyone. When asked if Kelly ever received any money 

when M.M. would have sex with guys in the house for money, Carnal replied that she 

thought M.M. would give Kelly $5 but that she did not know if the guys paid Kelly. 

When asked what her response would be to an allegation that Kelly forced M.M. 

to engage in prostitution, Carnal replied that Kelly never forced anyone to do anything. 

Carnal stated, “Well, you know, we had a little set up. But [Kelly] didn’t force nobody 

to do nothing that they didn’t want to do.” Carnal said that she heard that M.M.’s 

mother was the one who forced M.M. into prostitution. M.M.’s mother came over to 

Kelly’s house a few times, and Carnal thought that M.M.’s mother had actually engaged 

in prostitution at the house once or twice. 

Carnal remembered seeing M.M. over at the house in the May/June 2012 

timeframe. Carnal stated, “After [M.M.] first came around that was it, she was there all 

the time.” Carnal was positive about the timeframe even though her own overall drug 

use, including having done heavy drugs in the preceding two or three years and having 

smoked pot as recently as three days before testifying, had affected her memory. 

Carnal remembered M.M. having sex for money in the middle bedroom of the house 

during those months. Carnal finally left Kelly’s house in about November or December 

2012 with Stephanie Stansbury.

Stansbury testified that Kelly would take people in if they did not have 

anywhere to go. She considered Kelly her friend, and Kelly helped her out, including 
Kelly v. State Page 5

providing her food and clothing and allowing her to live with her from about August to 

December 2012. Carnal, M.M., and a woman named Nicole also lived at Kelly’s house

at some point. Stansbury confirmed that there was a picture of M.M. in Kelly’s 

bedroom. 

Stansbury testified that she met M.M. in early August 2012. She and M.M. did 

not get along because of a dispute over a guy named Alfredo. Beginning in about June 

2012, Stansbury would take Alfredo over to Kelly’s house, drop him off, and then pick 

him back up later. When she herself then started going over to Kelly’s house, she found 

out that Alfredo had been going over to the house to see M.M. When asked if M.M. was 

at Kelly’s house in June 2012, however, Stansbury replied, “I’m not sure. I just know I 

would drop [Alfredo] off and pick him up.” Stansbury moved on from Alfredo and 

started seeing Michael Briock on August 2, 2012, but she and M.M. had a dispute over 

Alfredo until about December 2012.

Stansbury testified that M.M. engaged in sex at Kelly’s house and other places of 

her own free will; Kelly did not force M.M. to engage in sex. M.M. would get into fights 

with her mother and just show up at Kelly’s house. When asked how M.M. would then 

end up having sex at the house, Stansbury replied, “Just if somebody would show up 

that decided that they wanted her she would go - - she would do it.” M.M. would use 

the middle bedroom at Kelly’s house. M.M. would bring Xanax bars with her to the 

house and said that the more Xanax bars she took, the easier it was for her to have sex. 

Stansbury said that she believed that M.M. got paid for having sex. Stansbury had also 

engaged in prostitution, and based on that experience, she knew what M.M. was doing. 
Kelly v. State Page 6

Briock had also bragged to her that he and M.M.’s mother were the ones that had gotten 

M.M. into having sex for money. When asked if M.M. ever paid Kelly out of the money 

that she made from the guys, Stansbury replied that the guys would pay Kelly only 

“like five dollars for use of the room.” Stansbury saw this during “August-September, 

September-October-ish” 2012. 

Stansbury testified that she left Kelly’s house in December 2012 because Briock 

asked her to leave. When asked how well she knew M.M. after December 2012, 

Stansbury replied that she took M.M. to Huntsville where they were “turning tricks” 

and that she also took M.M. down to Galveston once. Stansbury said that her dad 

called her when Kelly was arrested. She got on the internet and read the news websites. 

She then wrote a comment online that stated:

[Kelly] has never forced nobody to sell themselves, if anyone was even 

doing that to begin with it was of their own choosing. [Kelly] did 

however try to take in people when they had nowhere to go, even if the 

person was undeserving of it. They would steal from her and she would 

still let them back, and I’ve never known there to be minors there except 

for [M.M.] and she was 17, which I believe is legal age to give consent.

Stansbury explained that she was angry and using methamphetamine when she wrote 

the comment and had no idea how old M.M. was. She believed that M.M. was eighteen 

years old when she met her at Kelly’s house. At the time of trial, Stansbury was in the 

Walker County jail.

M.M. testified that she was born on September 3, 1994, and her birth certificate 

was admitted into evidence. She turned eighteen years old on September 3, 2012, and 

was nineteen years old at the time of trial. M.M. stated that she had never lived with 
Kelly v. State Page 7

her father and had nothing to do with him; he only called her when he was drunk. She 

had a good relationship with her mother. 

M.M. testified that she first met Kelly in Normangee when she was fourteen 

years old. They became friends, and at some point M.M. lived with her there. When 

Kelly moved to Centerville, M.M. went with her, and they became best friends. M.M. 

said that she did not live with Kelly in Centerville but that she did stay off and on with 

her. When she was with Kelly, they would just “[c]hill and hang out and party.” M.M.

eventually went to Madisonville to Kelly’s house. Kelly’s grandmother owned the 

house, and Kelly’s mother lived in the house. Kelly’s mother ran the house when she 

was alive and would give M.M. a place to stay. M.M. would stay at the house off and 

on. M.M.’s mother and Kelly also knew each other, and M.M.’s mother hung out at the 

house at times. Kelly’s mother passed away when M.M. was eighteen years old. 

M.M. testified that she had engaged in prostitution to earn money. Her mother 

had engaged in prostitution at times as well. M.M. said that no one forced her or her 

mother to do it. The first time M.M. engaged in prostitution was in Centerville when 

she was fourteen years old. Kelly called a guy, and they went to a motel where M.M.

had sex for money. M.M. also engaged in sex, sometimes for money, at Kelly’s house in 

Madisonville, as well as at other places in Madisonville. Several photographs that M.M. 

posted to Facebook during June and July 2012 were admitted into evidence. M.M. 

would have been seventeen years old when the pictures were taken. The photographs 

show M.M. in Kelly’s house, and M.M. stated that when she was at Kelly’s house 

during those dates, she was having sex for money over there. When asked how she 
Kelly v. State Page 8

would get the guys to Kelly’s house, M.M. replied, “[Kelly] would call them and then 

get them, and then I would tell her to call some licks for me because I need money.”1 

The guys would be of Mexican nationality only. When asked why just the one 

nationality, M.M. replied that she did not know. M.M. said that she made different 

prices for having sex with different guys. When asked if she ever had to give Kelly any 

of the money, M.M. responded, “I mean, I would give her, you know, just give her 

money like man, quit, here.” When asked how much she would give her, M.M. said, “I 

don’t know the - - exactly price. I would just give her money, you know. Just get her 

what she needs, you know, cigarettes.” The guy or “lick” would give $5 to Kelly when 

he came over. 

Madisonville Police Lieutenant Jonathan Zitzmann testified that he and Corporal 

Gary Laws2 conducted an interview with Kelly on April 16, 2013, regarding prostitution 

and human trafficking. Portions of the audio/video recording of the interview were 

admitted into evidence. During the interview, Kelly stated that the females, including 

Dorothy Carnal, Stephanie Stansbury, Nicole Shelton, and M.M., would use the middle 

bedroom of the house for prostitution. Kelly said that the females had a preference for 

Hispanic men because they thought that the men were less likely to be the law. Kelly 

speaks Spanish fluently, so she would translate for the females. Kelly stated that she 

would receive $5 from the female and $5 from the male to use the middle bedroom for 

prostitution. Kelly said that M.M. always argued with her about how much she should 

 

1 M.M. explained that the guys with the money were referred to as “licks.”

2 M.M. testified that she knew Laws from when “they” would come over to Kelly’s house. M.M. stated 

that she had told Laws that he was “hot” but that that would not make her lie while testifying.
Kelly v. State Page 9

give her, but M.M. would also give her gifts sometimes. 

On cross-examination, Zitzmann acknowledged that he never mentioned in the 

interview the timeframe that these acts occurred. He never talked specifically about 

June to July 2012. Zitzmann also acknowledged that he was aware that Kelly’s mother 

was living in the house during June and July 2012 but that he had never talked to 

Kelly’s mother in reference to this case. Zitzmann acknowledged that M.M. was 

eighteen years old at the time the interview occurred. 

Finally, Lieutenant Melinda Poe, the jail administrator for the Madison County 

jail, testified that she was in charge of the jail calls, meaning any communication the 

inmates had with the outside world. The jail calls are all recorded for the safety and 

security of the facility. Clips of several of Kelly’s jail calls were admitted into evidence. 

During these calls, Kelly stated, “I didn’t do nothing. I mean I might have translated a 

little bit before for people that don’t speak English – I’m just helping people you 

know?” Kelly said that she was just putting a roof over homeless people’s heads; they 

were already prostitutes when they got there. Kelly admitted, however, that she let 

M.M. use the middle room, and in speaking of M.M., Kelly said, “The only way they got 

a case is if she takes the stand, you know.”

After the State rested, Nicole Shelton testified that she had lived in the middle 

room of the house at 702 East Collard for about seven or eight months beginning on 

October 2, 2012. Kelly’s mother was still alive at that time; she owned the house and

controlled who lived and visited there. Kelly’s mother passed away on February 4, 

2013. Shelton was still living in the house when the search was conducted on the house, 
Kelly v. State Page 10

and Jason McKinney was her boyfriend at the time.

Shelton testified that she knew of M.M. but never associated with her until she 

began living at Kelly’s house in October 2012. M.M. was eighteen at that time. M.M.’s 

mother usually drove M.M. to and from the house, and M.M.’s mother would stay at 

the house with M.M. They were at the house fairly often. Shelton did not remember 

seeing M.M. at the house without her mother there. Shelton and M.M. did not get 

along, but M.M. would talk to Shelton about Laws often. When asked what M.M. said 

about Laws, Shelton replied, “She said that her and Officer Gary Laws would mess 

around and basically have sex.” “She would mention that she had strings she could 

pull. But which basically means she could get out of trouble because of what she was 

doing with Officer Laws.”

Shelton testified that M.M. would engage in prostitution at Kelly’s house but that 

Kelly never forced M.M. to do so. Shelton, Carnal, and Stansbury also prostituted at the 

house. When asked how M.M. found the guys with whom she engaged in prostitution, 

Shelton replied, “It was just friends that she had had.” When asked how she herself got 

the guys over to the house, Shelton replied, “They were friends that I knew that would 

come over.” But Shelton also said that the guys that would come over to engage in 

prostitution were guys that would work in the oil field or weld. They were “[r]aces of 

any kind.” Kelly speaks Spanish, and when asked if it was true that Kelly was a 

translator that set up the dates with a lot of the guys that came over, Shelton replied, 

“Only with the ones that anybody couldn’t speak with.” They would use the middle 

room of the house to engage in prostitution. She, Carnal, Stansbury, and M.M. never 
Kelly v. State Page 11

gave Kelly any money for the guys that came over. Carnal would be lying if she said 

that she gave Kelly $5 from each transaction. When asked, however, if it would 

surprise her that Stansbury testified that Kelly would get $5 from each transaction, she 

replied that it would not surprise her. Shelton then stated, “Honestly, I don’t know. I 

have never seen any money transfer.”

Shelton testified that she cares a lot for Kelly. Kelly gave her a place to live when 

she had nowhere to live. Kelly bought her food and clothes and provided friendship. 

Kelly’s mother also gave her food and shelter. Shelton said that she is not a big fan of 

M.M. because M.M. was ungrateful for what Kelly did for her; Kelly had provided 

M.M. her house, food, friendship, and an opportunity to make money out of her house.

Jason McKinney then testified that he lived in Kelly’s house during part of 2012 

and 2013. He moved into the house when he started dating M.M. in October 2012. The 

relationship lasted about a month. He then dated Shelton and was living in the middle 

room of the house. He saw M.M. and her mother at the house many times. He stated 

that Kelly’s grandmother owned the house and that Kelly and her mother lived in the 

house and controlled the house.

In rebuttal, Madisonville Police Officer Jonathan Lawrenz testified that he was 

on street patrol on February 22, 2011, when they received an anonymous phone call 

about possible drug activity at the Western Lodge. When they got to the Western 

Lodge, they informed the manager why they were there. They then pulled around to 

the room and saw that the door was open and that Kelly was standing outside the room

by the door. Lawrenz got out of his patrol car and walked up to the door. When he 
Kelly v. State Page 12

looked inside the room, he saw an older white gentleman laying on the bed and a 

young white female standing at the foot of the bed naked. There was also another 

female standing by the door where Kelly was. 

Lawrenz testified that he made contact with Kelly, who said that she had rented 

the room. Kelly provided her birthdate as November 7, 1979, making her thirty-one 

years old at the time. They told the young girl who was naked to put on her clothes. 

She was identified as M.M. M.M. said that she was seventeen years old; however, when 

they got to the jail, they found out that M.M. was actually only sixteen years old at the 

time. The older gentleman was fifty-three years old at the time. 

Lawrenz testified that they got consent to search the room. When they walked 

in, they found used condoms all over the floor. Lawrenz stated that it appeared to him 

that sex had been occurring in the room. He tried to ascertain whether prostitution was 

going on in the room, but they denied it. No one was arrested for prostitution that 

night. 

Compelling Prostitution

A person commits the offense of compelling prostitution if the person knowingly 

“causes by any means a child younger than 18 years to commit prostitution, regardless 

of whether the actor knows the age of the child at the time the actor commits the 

offense.” TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 43.05(a)(2) (West Supp. 2014). Because M.M. turned 

eighteen years old on September 3, 2012, the indictment and the jury charge limited the 

alleged compelling prostitution to a period of time of “on or about and between” June 1, 

2012 and July 31, 2012. Kelly argues that the evidence is insufficient to prove that (1) 
Kelly v. State Page 13

she “caused” M.M. to engage in prostitution and (2) if such conduct occurred, it 

occurred before M.M. turned eighteen years old. 

We begin with causation. In Waggoner v. State, 897 S.W.2d 510 (Tex. App.—

Austin 1995, no pet.), the appellant argued that the evidence was insufficient to support 

the jury’s finding that he was guilty of compelling prostitution because there was 

insufficient evidence of causation. Id. at 511-12. In addressing this issue, the Austin 

Court of Appeals observed that Texas law provides little guidance as to the meaning of 

causing a minor to commit prostitution “by any means” beyond the Penal Code’s 

general definition of causation: “A person is criminally responsible if the result would 

not have occurred but for his conduct, operating either alone or concurrently with 

another cause, unless the concurrent cause was clearly sufficient to produce the result 

and the conduct of the actor clearly insufficient.” Id. at 512 (citing TEX. PENAL CODE 

ANN. § 6.04(a) (West 2011)). The Austin court thus looked at State v. Wood, 579 P.2d 294 

(Or. Ct. App. 1978), a case in which the Oregon Court of Appeals construed a similar 

penal statute. Waggoner, 897 S.W.2d at 512. The statute at issue in Wood provided: “A 

person commits the crime of compelling prostitution if the person knowingly ... 

[i]nduces or causes a person under 18 years of age to engage in prostitution.” Wood, 579 

P.2d at 295-96 (citing OR. REV. STAT. ANN. § 167.017(1)(b)). The Oregon court stated: 

“The purpose of ... this statute is to provide maximum protection for minors from the 

harmful, cumulative effects of a life of prostitution.... [The statute] is intended to 

prohibit ‘conduct that exploits the immature’ regardless of coercion.” Id. at 296. The 

Oregon court therefore held: “[O]ne who provides opportunity for a willing minor to 
Kelly v. State Page 14

engage in prostitution and influences, persuades or prevails upon her to do so has 

induced or caused the prostitution within the meaning of the statute regardless of her 

consent.” Id. In light of this, the Austin court held in Waggoner that the evidence was 

sufficient to support the jury’s finding that the appellant knowingly caused the minor to 

commit prostitution because the record established that (1) the appellant clearly 

provided the opportunity for the minor to engage in prostitution and (2) the appellant 

persuaded the minor to go through with the encounter. Waggoner, 897 S.W.2d at 512-13.

Kelly argues that under the standard stated in Wood and approved of in 

Waggoner, it is not sufficient that she provided an opportunity for a willing minor to 

engage in prostitution but that she must have also influenced, persuaded, or prevailed 

upon the minor to engage in prostitution and that there is no evidence that she 

influenced, persuaded, or prevailed upon M.M. to engage in prostitution. Kelly asserts 

that the evidence showed that M.M.’s decisions during the time set out in the 

indictment and jury charge were made independent of her influence. Kelly further 

argues that the evidence is insufficient under the “but for” test of causation stated in 

section 6.04(a) of the Penal Code and discussed in Waggoner because the evidence 

showed that the same conduct of M.M. that occurred at her house also occurred at other 

locations away from her.

We conclude that the evidence was sufficient to prove that Kelly “caused” M.M. 

“by any means” to engage in prostitution. The evidence that Kelly complied with 

M.M.’s request to make phone calls to the men for her and acted as a translator is 

arguably sufficient to show that Kelly “influenced” M.M. to engage in prostitution. But
Kelly v. State Page 15

the compelling-prostitution statute states that a person commits the offense if she 

causes a child younger than eighteen years to commit prostitution “by any means,” not 

“by providing opportunity for a willing minor to engage in prostitution and 

influencing, persuading or prevailing upon her to do so.” In other words, while 

providing a willing minor the opportunity to engage in prostitution and influencing, 

persuading, or prevailing upon her to do so is one way to commit the offense of 

compelling prostitution, the statute does not limit that conduct to the only conduct by 

which a person commits the offense. Instead, we look back at the Penal Code’s general 

definition of causation: “A person is criminally responsible if the result would not have 

occurred but for his conduct, operating either alone or concurrently with another cause, 

unless the concurrent cause was clearly sufficient to produce the result and the conduct 

of the actor clearly insufficient.” TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 6.04(a). And in this case, 

viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, we conclude that the 

jury could have found that but for Kelly’s conduct in making the phone calls to the men 

for M.M., acting as a translator, and providing a bedroom in her house, M.M. would not 

have engaged in prostitution with those men at Kelly’s house.3 

We now turn to whether the evidence was sufficient to prove that the conduct of 

Kelly’s that caused M.M. to engage in prostitution occurred before M.M. turned 

eighteen years old. The foregoing evidence showed that M.M. was engaging in 

prostitution at Kelly’s house before she turned eighteen years old. The evidence also 

 

3 It is irrelevant that the evidence showed that M.M. engaged in prostitution at other locations away from 

Kelly as long as the jury could have found that but for Kelly’s conduct, M.M. would not have engaged in 

the specific acts of prostitution that occurred at Kelly’s house.
Kelly v. State Page 16

showed that Kelly made calls to the men at M.M.’s request to get them to Kelly’s house

and that Kelly acted as a translator during those calls. While the evidence does not 

directly show that Kelly’s conduct of making the calls for M.M. and of acting as a 

translator occurred before M.M. turned eighteen, the jury could have drawn that 

inference. See Lucio, 351 S.W.3d at 894 (quoting Jackson, 443 U.S. at 319) (stating that 

sufficiency standard “’gives full play to the responsibility of the trier of fact fairly ... to 

draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts.’”). Viewing the evidence 

in the light most favorable to the verdict, we therefore conclude that the evidence was 

sufficient to prove that the conduct of Kelly’s that caused M.M. to engage in

prostitution occurred before M.M. turned eighteen years old. 

The evidence was thus sufficient to support Kelly’s conviction for compelling 

prostitution. We overrule Kelly’s first issue.

Trafficking of Persons

A person commits the offense of trafficking of persons if the person knowingly 

“traffics a child and by any means causes the trafficked child to engage in, or become 

the victim of, conduct prohibited by” Section 43.05 (Compelling Prostitution). TEX.

PENAL CODE ANN. § 20A.02(a)(7)(H) (West Supp. 2014). Again, because M.M. turned 

eighteen years old on September 3, 2012, the indictment and the jury charge limited the 

alleged trafficking of persons to a period of time “on or about and between” June 1, 

2012 and July 31, 2012. Kelly argues that (1) for the reasons discussed with regard to 

compelling prostitution, the evidence is insufficient to support the “causes” element of 

the offense of trafficking of persons and (2) the evidence is insufficient to support a 
Kelly v. State Page 17

finding that she “trafficked” a child. 

Having already addressed and overruled Kelly’s causation argument above, we 

turn directly to Kelly’s argument that the evidence is insufficient to support a finding 

that she “trafficked” a child. “Traffic” means to transport, entice, recruit, harbor, 

provide, or otherwise obtain another person by any means. Id. § 20A.01(4).

At a minimum, Kelly “harbored” M.M. The most commonly recognized 

meanings of the word “harbor” as a verb are “to give shelter to” and “to give refuge to.” 

Urbanski v. State, 993 S.W.2d 789, 793 (Tex. App.—Dallas 1999, no pet.) (holding that 

definition of “harbor” is broad enough to encompass providing runaway child with 

shelter, transportation, or a home). The definition of “refuge” includes protection, or a 

source of help, relief, or comfort. Id.

Kelly argues that the undisputed evidence that M.M. did not live at her home 

and that she would be brought there by her mother precludes a rational factfinder from 

finding beyond a reasonable doubt that she “harbored” M.M. But even if M.M. did not 

live at Kelly’s house, the evidence shows that M.M. stayed there at times and that Kelly 

provided M.M. with necessities like food and clothing when she needed it. Specifically, 

Stansbury testified that M.M. would get into fights with her mother and just show up at 

Kelly’s house. Carnal testified that Kelly would feed the people that she took in and 

buy clothes for them, if needed, that this included M.M., and that M.M. needed things 

every now and then and Kelly would help M.M. if she could. Even Shelton, a defense

witness, stated that she thought M.M. was ungrateful because Kelly provided her 

house, food, and friendship and gave M.M. an opportunity to make money out of her 
Kelly v. State Page 18

house. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, we therefore 

conclude that the evidence was sufficient to prove that Kelly “harbored” and thus 

“trafficked” M.M.

The evidence was therefore sufficient to support Kelly’s conviction for trafficking 

of persons. We overrule Kelly’s second issue.

Attorney’s Fees

In her third issue, Kelly contends that the trial court erred in rendering judgment 

for attorney’s fees in the absence of evidence of her ability to pay attorney’s fees. The 

State concedes that the judgments should be modified.

The clerk’s record reflects that, before trial, the trial court found that Kelly was 

indigent and appointed an attorney to represent her. Once Kelly was initially found to 

be indigent, she was presumed to remain indigent for the remainder of the proceedings 

unless it was shown that a material change in her financial resources had occurred. See 

TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 26.04(p) (West Supp. 2014). The trial court did not 

make any findings or otherwise address Kelly’s financial condition again before signing 

the judgments. Furthermore, after signing the judgments, the trial court appointed an 

attorney for appeal, stating: “The Court finds that Jennifer Kelly, Defendant, is 

indigent, and is entitled to the appointment of counsel to represent said Defendant on 

appeal.” Therefore, we sustain Kelly’s third issue and modify the judgments to delete

the assessment of attorney’s fees. See Mayer v. State, 309 S.W.3d 552, 555-56 (Tex. Crim. 

App. 2010). 
Kelly v. State Page 19

Conclusion

Based on the foregoing, we modify the trial court’s judgments to delete the 

assessment of attorney’s fees. We affirm the judgments as modified in all other 

respects.

REX D. DAVIS

Justice

Before Chief Justice Gray,

Justice Davis, and

Justice Scoggins

Affirmed as modified

Opinion delivered and filed January 8, 2015

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