Saunders v. State

OPINION ON APPELLANT’S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW

A jury convicted appellant of murder and assessed his punishment at seventy-five years imprisonment. The conviction was affirmed. Saunders v. State, 780 S.W.2d 471 (Tex.App.—Corpus Christi 1989). We granted appellant’s petition to determine whether a requested jury instruction for the offense of criminally negligent homicide should have been given.

Two months after the seventeen year-old appellant began sharing an apartment with his girlfriend, Reba Ann McFadden, McFadden’s five month-old child Darrell was found dead in his crib. Fifteen…