Opinion ID: 2742257
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sufficiency of the Indictments (Claims 5 and 6)

Text: In claims 5 and 6, Holiday challenges the sufficiency of the indictments. The Sixth Amendment requires only that a “reasonable construction of the indictment would charge the offense for which the defendant has been convicted.” McKay v. Collins, 12 F.3d 66, 69 (5th Cir. 1994) (citation omitted). 9 Case: 13-70022 Document: 00512802322 Page: 10 Date Filed: 10/14/2014 No. 13-70022 This standard should be applied with practical, not technical considerations. Id. Thus, the indictment “need not be expressed in any specific terms,” but need only include the “essential elements of the offense” under state law. Id. (citation omitted). We look to the “plain and sensible meaning of the language used” in the indictment, and bear in mind that this test “involves minimal constitutional standards, not whether a better indictment could have been written.” Id. (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). We will not consider such claims, however, “[w]hen it appears . . . that the sufficiency of the indictment was squarely presented to the highest court of the state on appeal, and that court held that the trial court had jurisdiction over the case.” Alexander v. McCotter, 775 F.2d 595, 598 (5th Cir. 1985) (alterations in original) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Holiday argues that the indictments employed generic terms and did not allege that he “start[ed] the fire,” but only that he “caused the death of an individual . . . by burning said individual with fire.” This, Holiday maintains, “allowed for many possible factual scenarios to result in conviction,” such as that Mitchell poured gasoline throughout the house which was then inadvertently ignited by a pilot light. “Unhinged from a constitutionally specific indictment,” Holiday continues, “the State was able to advance several theories of guilt based upon a theory that Holiday was criminally responsible for the conduct of [Mitchell].” Reasonable jurists could not debate the district court’s rejection of Holiday’s claims under McCotter. The TCCA found the indictment sufficient because it alleged how the victims died—“by being burned in a fire”—and that “Holiday acted intentionally or knowingly in causing such deaths.” TCCA Direct App. at –27. Indeed, Holiday concedes that the TCCA held, “on the merits of Holiday’s challenge to the sufficiency of the indictments, that they satisfied state law.” Because the claims were squarely presented to the TCCA 10 Case: 13-70022 Document: 00512802322 Page: 11 Date Filed: 10/14/2014 No. 13-70022 and upheld, the district court correctly observed that this “should end the inquiry.” Dist. Ct. Op. at  (quoting McCotter, 775 F.2d at 599). Accordingly, we decline to issue a COA on either claim 5 or 6. In any event, we agree with the TCCA. Even if the indictment could have been better written with a charge that Holiday caused the deaths by starting the fire, a plain and sensible reading of the indictment would nevertheless charge Holiday with the offense for which he was convicted. Holiday fails to show that the indictment was “so fatally defective that under no circumstances could a valid conviction result from facts provable under the indictment.” See Liner v. Phelps, 731 F.2d 1201, 1203 (5th Cir. 1984). Jurists of reason could not debate otherwise.