In the

Court of Appeals

Sixth Appellate District of Texas at Texarkana

No. 06-23-00160-CR

AARON MICHAEL MARSHALL, Appellant

V.

THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

On Appeal from the 5th District Court

Cass County, Texas

Trial Court No. 2022F00022

Before Stevens, C.J., van Cleef and Rambin, JJ.

Memorandum Opinion by Justice Rambin
2

MEMORANDUM OPINION

A Cass County jury convicted Aaron Michael Marshall of sexual assault of a child and 

assessed a sentence of ten years’ imprisonment. See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 22.011(f)

(Supp.), § 25.02. In his sole point of error on appeal, Marshall argues that his conviction for this 

offense violated double jeopardy because he was also convicted of continuous sexual abuse of a 

young child.1 Because no double-jeopardy violation is shown on this record, we overrule 

Marshall’s sole point of error and affirm the trial court’s judgment. 

I. No Double-Jeopardy Violation Is Shown 

The Fifth Amendment guarantee against double jeopardy protects “against multiple 

punishments for the same offense.” Whalen v. United States, 445 U.S. 684, 688 (1980) (quoting 

North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 717 (1969)). Initially, we address the State’s argument 

that Marshall failed to preserve his double-jeopardy complaint. While we agree that Marshall 

did not raise his specific complaint with the trial court, “when the error is clearly apparent from 

the face of the record, a double jeopardy violation can be raised for the first time on appeal.”

Alberts v. State, 302 S.W.3d 495, 500 (Tex. App.—Texarkana 2009, no pet.) (citing Bigon v. 

State, 252 S.W.3d 360, 369 (Tex. Crim. App. 2008)). As a result, we will examine the record to 

address Marshall’s complaint. 

In our companion case 06-23-00158-CR, we discussed the evidence admitted at the 

consolidated trial on all of Marshall’s charges. In 06-23-00158-CR, the State alleged that 

1

In companion cause number 06-23-00158-CR, Marshall appeals from a conviction for continuous sexual assault of 

a young child. In companion cause number 06-23-00159-CR, Marshall appeals from another conviction of sexual 

assault of a child. In companion cause numbers 06-23-000161-CR through 06-23-00166-CR, Marshall appeals from 

six other convictions for indecency with a child. 
3

Marshall committed continuous sexual abuse of Alice Owens2by committing two or more acts 

of sexual abuse against her from August 1, 2015, through May 31, 2017. The State alleged that 

the predicate offenses for continuous sexual assault were indecency with a child and aggravated 

sexual assault of a child by penetration of her sexual organ. 

It is true that a defendant “charged with continuous sexual abuse who is tried in the same 

criminal action for an enumerated offense based on conduct committed against the same victim 

may not be convicted for both offenses unless the latter offense occurred outside the period of 

time in which the continuous-sexual-abuse offense was committed.” Jackson v. State, 567 

S.W.3d 405, 407 (Tex. App.—Texarkana 2018, no pet.) (quoting Price v. State, 434 S.W.3d 601, 

606 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014)). Here, the record shows that Marshall was not tried for an offense 

enumerated in the State’s continuous sexual assault indictment and that the offense alleged here 

occurred outside the period of time in which the continuous sexual abuse against Owens was 

committed. 

The State’s indictment in this case alleged that,

on or about the 1st day of September, 2019, . . . AARON MICHAEL 

MARSHALL, did then and there, intentionally and knowingly cause the 

penetration of the sexual organ of Alice Owens (pseudonym), a child who was 

younger than 17 years of age, by defendant’s finger, and Alice Owens 

(pseudonym) was a person whom the defendant was prohibited from engaging in 

sexual intercourse or deviate sexual intercourse under Section 25.02 of the Texas 

Penal Code.

2To protect her identity, we will use the State’s assigned pseudonym for the child complainant. See TEX. R. APP. P.

9.10. 
4

As a result, whereas the continuous sexual assault allegation involved aggravated sexual assault 

before Owens’s fourteenth birthday on June 1, 2017, the offense alleged here was sexual assault 

occurring when Owens was sixteen. 

Moreover, at the consolidated trial, Owens testified that Marshall penetrated her vagina 

with his fingers on a total of two occasions. Because she could not testify that those occasions 

were before her fourteenth birthday, we found that the testimony could not support the use of 

sexual assaults as predicate offenses occurring within the statutory timeframe of continuous 

sexual abuse of a young child. Instead, that testimony supported the finding of a separate sexual 

assault of a child offense in this case and in companion cause number 06-23-00159-CR. Further, 

this case differs from 06-23-00159-CR because the offense date of that case was “on or about 

September 1, 2018,” whereas the offense date in this case was “on or about September 1, 2019.”

Because there is no double-jeopardy violation apparent on the face of this record, we 

overrule Marshall’s sole point of error in this appeal. 

II. Disposition 

We affirm the trial court’s judgment. 

Jeff Rambin

Justice

Date Submitted: July 5, 2024

Date Decided: July 12, 2024

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