Victor Rolando Corpus v. the State of Texas

Opinion filed April 16, 2026




                                     In The


        Eleventh Court of Appeals
                                  __________

                               No. 11-24-00091-CR
                                   __________

                 VICTOR ROLANDO CORPUS, Appellant
                                        V.
                      THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee


                     On Appeal from the 350th District Court
                             Taylor County, Texas
                         Trial Court Cause No. 15867-D


                      MEMORANDUM OPINION
       The jury convicted Victor Rolando Corpus of continuous sexual abuse of a
child, a first-degree felony, and indecency with a child by contact, a second-degree
felony. See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. §§ 21.02(b), (h), 21.11(a)(1), (d) (West 2026).
The jury assessed Appellant’s punishment at confinement for a term of forty-five
years in the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice
(TDCJ) on the conviction for continuous sexual abuse of a child and at confinement
for a term of twenty years in TDCJ on the conviction for indecency with a child.
The trial court ordered that the sentences be served concurrently. In a single issue,
Appellant contends that the trial court abused its discretion when it denied his motion
for a continuance. We affirm.
                                        Background Facts
      In a two-count indictment, Appellant was charged with continuous sexual
abuse of a child committed against PSEUDLC and PSEUILLY and indecency with
a child against PSEUDLC by breast touching.1
      Three weeks before the jury trial began, the State informed Appellant’s trial
counsel that Appellant’s cousin, who the State intended to call as a witness pursuant
to Article 38.37 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, had previously been
admitted into a behavioral hospital. See TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 38.37
(West Supp. 2025) (relating to evidence of extraneous offenses in certain cases).
Appellant’s trial counsel issued a subpoena to Oceans Behavioral seeking the
records related to the hospital stay, but then counsel learned that the hospital was
owned by Acadia at the time of the cousin’s admission and the facility had been
subsequently acquired by Oceans Behavioral. The records of patients treated at the
time of the cousin’s admission were transferred to Acadia in Belton.              Upon
discovering this, Appellant’s trial counsel reissued the subpoena to Acadia. It was
served on March 13, 2024, with the records to be hand-delivered at the courtroom
on the first day of trial or e-mailed to Appellant’s trial counsel if available sooner.
      The jury trial began on March 18, 2024. Prior to the commencement of jury
selection, Appellant’s trial counsel informed the trial court that the records she had
subpoenaed had not yet been delivered, and she explained the challenges that she
encountered when issuing the subpoena. Appellant’s trial counsel stated that she


      1
       We use pseudonyms to refer to the victims to protect their identities.
                                                      2
would follow up on the records, and the trial court advised that it would follow up
as well if necessary. The trial proceeded, and the jury was empaneled and sworn.
Appellant pleaded “not guilty” to both counts.
      Appellant’s cousin first testified at an Article 38.37 hearing, outside of the
presence of the jury. CRIM. PROC. art. 38.37, § 2-a. She testified at the hearing that
she did not tell anyone at Acadia about the offenses that Appellant committed against
her. In this regard, after pressure from her family, she had agreed to drop the charges
against Appellant for $10,000. As a result of the payment arrangement, made when
she was thirteen, Appellant’s cousin was prohibited by its terms and by her family
members from speaking about what Appellant had done. She testified that, because
of the agreement, she “wasn’t allowed to tell [Acadia]” about the offenses. After the
hearing, the trial court found that Appellant’s cousin’s testimony could be admitted
at trial under Article 38.37. Id.
      The trial continued the next day. The Acadia records still had not been
delivered despite the subpoena. The trial court called the chief financial officer of
the facility and spoke with her. The trial court stated that the chief financial officer
explained that the records still had not been found and that the facility was having
difficulty in locating them. The trial court asked Appellant’s trial counsel what she
wanted the court to do and if she had any concerns. Appellant’s trial counsel
responded:
      I was in the room when you made the phone call. [The chief financial
      officer] did express confidence that the records existed, that it wasn’t a
      situation that the records might no longer be available. It was a
      situation of record numbers getting mislabeled or rearranged somehow.
      So, they were having to have extra efforts in order to locate them.
            We questioned [Appellant’s cousin] yesterday, [the State] did,
      about what we might find in those records because I subpoenaed them
      because when you find out that an alleged complaining witness has
      sought psychiatric treatment, you know, it’s part of my independent
                                              3
      investigation to seek out those records; but without any knowledge that
      there might actually be anything mitigating for my client, it was in the
      course of a general investigation. [Appellant’s cousin] testified
      yesterday that she did not speak about the alleged incident with
      [Appellant] at all at that time because . . . she was not allowed to do so
      by her family. At that point in time, she had essentially been sworn to
      secrecy by agreeing to take the money.
             So, with that understanding of what might be in the records --
      and I don’t have any independent reason to believe that there would be
      anything other than that in the records; however, we do not know. It’s
      an open-ended question at this point. I understand that you will
      continue to make those efforts to get some sort of update. If we come
      to the end of the State’s case without any sort of update on the records,
      then at that point in time I might ask for a continuance in order to finish
      the process of getting those records. Knowing what we suspect might
      be in the records or might not be in the records, I understand that your
      ruling will consider efficiency of court time.
The trial court responded that it would consider the motion for continuance if and
when it was made.
      The trial proceeded. The jury heard testimony from the victims’ mother, the
forensic interviewer who interviewed the victims, the nurses who completed the
victims’ forensic exams, the victims themselves, a detective with the Abilene Police
Department Special Victims Unit, Appellant’s cousin, and law enforcement officers
who were involved with the investigation when Appellant’s cousin came forward.
      After Appellant’s cousin’s direct examination by the State, Appellant’s trial
counsel made an oral motion for continuance before cross-examining the witness,
because the Acadia records still had not arrived. Appellant’s trial counsel discussed
the efforts that had been made to obtain the records and acknowledged the difficulty
in obtaining the records. Appellant’s trial counsel stated:
      [Appellant’s cousin] testified previously in the [Article] 38.37 hearing
      that she did not speak about the incident at all in her treatment, as she
      had already basically been sworn to secrecy by her family at that point
      in time. So, what is in those records right now is a completely unknown
                                              4
      quantity; and we do have reason to believe that there wouldn’t be
      information about the alleged offense in those records. That having
      been said, we don’t know; therefore, we would ask for a continuance
      before we cross-examine [Appellant’s cousin].
The trial court acknowledged the efforts that had been made and the difficulty in
obtaining the records.    The trial court expressed concern about granting the
continuance, noting that it could still be “many, many days” before the records were
located. Before ruling on the motion, however, the trial court made another phone
call in an attempt to locate the records. The trial court was only able to leave a
message. The trial court explained that “at this point we cannot just continue a trial
unless there’s something more than hope that there’s some evidence out there that
would be of some assistance to the defense.” The trial court denied the oral motion
for continuance, and the trial proceeded to a verdict.
                                      Analysis
      In a single issue, Appellant contends that the trial court abused its discretion
by denying Appellant’s motion for a continuance.
      We review a trial court’s ruling on a motion for continuance under an abuse-
of-discretion standard. Gallo v. State, 239 S.W.3d 757, 764 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007);
Janecka v. State, 937 S.W.2d 456, 458 (Tex. Crim. App. 1996). To establish an
abuse of discretion, an appellant must show that the trial court erred by denying his
motion for continuance and that he was harmed by the denial. Gonzales v. State,
304 S.W.3d 838, 843 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010); Janecka, 937 S.W.2d at 468.
      The State asserts that Appellant waived his complaint regarding the trial
court’s denial of his motion for continuance because the motion was unwritten and
unsworn. The State is correct in making this contention. To preserve appellate
review from a trial court’s denial of a motion for continuance, the motion must be in
writing and sworn. CRIM. PROC. arts. 29.03, 29.08 (West 2006); Anderson v. State,
301 S.W.3d 276, 279 (Tex. Crim. App. 2009). “Thus, if a party makes an unsworn
                                              5
oral motion for a continuance and the trial judge denies it, the party forfeits the right
to complain about the judge’s ruling on appeal.” Anderson, 301 S.W.3d at 279.
There is no due process exception to this requirement. Blackshear v. State, 385
S.W.3d 589, 591 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012). Appellant’s motion for continuance was
an unsworn, oral motion. Accordingly, the trial court’s denial of the motion was not
preserved for review.
      Even if Appellant had not waived his complaint, Appellant cannot show that
the trial court erred in denying the motion. See Gonzales, 304 S.W.3d at 843.
      Appellant urges us to apply the “Taylor factors” in determining whether the
trial court abused its discretion in denying the motion for continuance. See Taylor v.
State, 555 S.W.3d 765, 775 (Tex. App.—Amarillo 2018, pet. ref’d). The defendant
in Taylor asserted that a denial of a motion for continuance interfered with his right
to have counsel of his choice. See id. at 771, 775. Citing Ex parte Windham, 634
S.W.2d 718, 719–20 (Tex. Crim. App. 1982), the Seventh Court of Appeals
identified several factors to weigh a defendant’s right to obtain counsel of his own
choice with a trial court’s need for prompt and efficient administration of justice. Id.
at 775. Because Appellant’s right to counsel was not implicated by his motion for
continuance, we find the Taylor factors inapplicable to this appeal.
      Article 29.13 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure provides as follows:
            A continuance or postponement may be granted on the motion of
      the State or defendant after the trial has begun, when it is made to
      appear to the satisfaction of the court that by some unexpected
      occurrence since the trial began, which no reasonable diligence could
      have anticipated, the applicant is so taken by surprise that a fair trial
      cannot be had.
CRIM. PROC. art. 29.13. Appellant has failed to show that the missing records were
an “unexpected occurrence” that could not have been anticipated by reasonable
diligence, or that he was “so taken by surprise” a fair trial could not be had. See id.

                                               6
Appellant’s trial counsel was aware on the eve of trial that the records had not been
delivered. When an appellant is aware of problems securing evidence before trial,
that appellant cannot show he was “so taken by surprise” that he could not have had
a fair trial. See Perez v. State, No. 11-11-00247-CR, 2013 WL 5512834, at *10
(Tex. App.—Eastland Sept. 30, 2013, pet. ref’d) (mem. op., not designated for
publication) (quoting CRIM. PROC. art. 29.13.).
        Additionally, where it is not shown that evidence can be secured by
postponement, or where it appears that a continuance due to missing evidence would
delay the trial indefinitely, the motion may be properly denied. Varela v. State, 561
S.W.2d 186, 191 (Tex. Crim. App. 1978), superseded by rule on other grounds as
stated in Bodin v. State, 807 S.W.2d 313, 317 (Tex. Crim. App. 1991). Because of
the challenges in locating the records, neither the trial court nor Appellant’s trial
counsel could estimate how long it might take to obtain the records. The trial court
was not required to postpone the trial indefinitely. See id. We note in this regard
that the appellate record does not indicate that the medical records were ever located.
As such, the trial court did not err by denying the oral motion for continuance.2
        Finally, the appellate record does not show that Appellant was harmed by the
denial of the motion for continuance. See Gonzales, 304 S.W.3d at 843. As we have
previously noted, there is no indication in the record that the hospital records were
ever found or that they contained entries that would have benefited Appellant at trial.
Appellant contends that the records were important to Appellant’s defense,
regardless of what they contained. Because the content in the records remains
unknown, however, their importance and their impact on Appellant’s defense


        2
          It is significant to note the trial court’s efforts to assist Appellant’s counsel in obtaining the medical
records that Appellant sought. The appellate record demonstrates that the trial court made multiple phone
calls in an effort to secure the records for Appellant. We are hard-pressed to find error on the part of the
trial court in dealing with Appellant’s motion for continuance when we consider the efforts made by the
trial court to assist Appellant in obtaining the records.
                                                                 7
remains speculation. “[M]ere speculation about evidence that a defendant might
have developed if the continuance were granted is not sufficient to demonstrate
harm.” Guerrero v. State, 528 S.W.3d 796, 800 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.]
2017, pet. ref’d) (first citing Renteria v. State, 206 S.W.3d 689, 702 (Tex. Crim.
App. 2006); and then citing Nwosoucha v. State, 325 S.W.3d 816, 825 (Tex. App.—
Houston [14th Dist.] 2010, pet. ref’d)). Without further proof of the contents of the
records, the record does not show harm or prejudice resulting from the trial court’s
denial of the motion for continuance.3
        Appellant has not shown that the trial court erred in denying the motion for
continuance or that he was harmed by the trial court’s denial of the continuance. See
CRIM. PROC. art. 29.13; Gonzales, 304 S.W.3d at 843. Accordingly, we overrule
Appellant’s sole issue.
                                       This Court’s Ruling
        We affirm the judgments of the trial court.




                                                        JOHN M. BAILEY


April 16, 2026
Do not publish. See TEX. R. APP. P. 47.2(b).
Panel consists of: Bailey, C.J.,
Trotter, J., and Williams, J.




        3
          We note that, ordinarily, a defendant can make such a showing only at a hearing on a motion for
new trial because only then will he be able to produce evidence regarding what additional information
would have been available to him if the trial court had granted the motion. See Gonzales, 304 S.W.3d at
842–43; Nwosoucha, 325 S.W.3d at 825. Here, Appellant did not file either a motion for new trial or other
posttrial motion in that regard.
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