On July 29, 2013, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth District of Texas at Dallas affirmed the 422nd Judicial District Court's judgments made in the 2012 trial of then Kaufman County Justice of the Peace Eric Williams.
Williams was indicted and later convicted for burglary of a building and theft by a public servant of property. Williams claims the trial court erred by admitting edited video evidence of him taking three computer monitors from the Kaufman County sub-courthouse and also erred by allowing the jurors to take notes and use them during deliberations.
In the Memorandum Opinion entered by Justice Molly Francis, the appellate court concluded that “neither issue has merit and [we] affirm the trial court's judgments.”
Williams and his wife, Kim, are now in jail for the capital murders of the prosecutors in those cases, Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse and Kaufman County District Attorney Mike McLelland. They are also charged with the capital murder of McLelland's wife Cynthia McLelland. Local authorities are calling the murders “grudge killings” because Williams was unseated as a Kaufman County Justice of the Peace and lost his license to practice law as a result of the criminal charges.
Williams will now have 30 days after the judgment made by the Court of Appeals to file a petition for discretionary review in the Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin, Texas if he so chooses.
See the below attachments for the complete memorandum from the 5th District of Texas Court of Appeals.