Alejandro Rodriguez Mata, Appellant v. the State of Texas

Summary

The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the Court of Appeals' ruling that the appellant received ineffective assistance of counsel at the punishment phase, where trial counsel failed to object to an erroneous parole-law instruction and to the prosecutor's jury argument. Applying Strickland, the Court held that the appellate record's silence as to why counsel failed to object left unrebutted the presumption of sound trial strategy, so the deficiency prong failed and the prejudice prong was not reached. It found that none of the complained-of prosecutorial statements — that a murderer 'can get good time credit,' the 'Let's do him' passage, and the pen-packet reference — clearly compelled a defense objection. The judgment was reversed and the case remanded for consideration of the appellant's other points of error.