In The
Court of Appeals
Seventh District of Texas at Amarillo
No. 07-26-00029-CR
GEORGE JAMES AHL, APPELLANT
V.
THE STATE OF TEXAS, APPELLEE
On Appeal from the Criminal District Court 1
Tarrant County, Texas1
Trial Court No. 1895820, Honorable Elizabeth Beach, Presiding
August 20, 2026
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Before DOSS and YARBROUGH and PRATT, JJ.
Appellant George James Ahl appeals from his conviction for stalking, a thirddegree felony, for which he was sentenced to six years in the Institutional Division of the
Texas Department of Criminal Justice.2 During jury selection, three members of the
1 This case was transferred from the Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth pursuant to a docket
equalization order from the Supreme Court of Texas. See TEX. GOV’T CODE § 73.001. We apply that court’s precedent to the extent it conflicts with our own. TEX. R. APP. P. 41.3.
2 See TEX. PENAL CODE § 42.072(d).
venire discussed among themselves their negative opinions of Appellant, concluding that
he was a “dirt bag” and a “piece of sh*t.” None of the three were seated on the jury.
Appellant moved for a mistrial, and the trial court denied the motion. That ruling
presents the sole issue on appeal. We affirm.
BACKGROUND
The facts underlying Appellant’s conviction are not contested on appeal. We
therefore limit our recitation to the events surrounding jury selection.
The conversation at the center of this appeal came to light only after the jury had
been selected. After both sides used their voir dire time, the trial court excused the venire
so the parties could exercise their strikes. The jury was seated with two alternates. The
next day, counsel for Appellant raised a matter outside the presence of the jury, reporting
that some women on the venire had expressed a negative opinion of Appellant because
they believed he had looked at the prosecutor inappropriately during voir dire.
An attorney with the firm representing Appellant testified about the conversation.
She stated that just before the jury was seated and sworn, she had stepped out of the
courtroom. A panel member approached her and reported that she, along with other
women on the panel, had noticed Appellant “visually undressing” the prosecutor as she
conducted her voir dire. The women discussed what they had seen and concluded that
Appellant was a “dirt bag” and a “piece of sh*t.” The witness identified two other panel
members as participants in that conversation. None of the three women were seated as
jurors or alternates.
2
Appellant moved for a mistrial, asserting juror misconduct and incurable bias. The
trial court denied the motion, finding that the only identified participants were three panel
members who did not sit on the jury and that no evidence showed the taint had extended
to anyone on the jury. The court also declined a request to question the seated female
jurors, reasoning that such questioning risked introducing the very taint the inquiry was
meant to detect. Following his conviction and sentence, Appellant filed a motion for new
trial asserting that the verdict was against the great weight of the evidence. That motion
was overruled by operation of law. This appeal followed.
ANALYSIS
A mistrial ends the proceedings and sends the parties back to the beginning, so
the bar for granting one is high. It is to be used in extreme circumstances, for a narrow
class of highly prejudicial and incurable errors, and only when less drastic alternatives fail
to cure the prejudice. Ocon v. State, 284 S.W.3d 880, 884 (Tex. Crim. App. 2009). We
review the denial of a motion for mistrial for an abuse of discretion, viewing the evidence
in the light most favorable to the ruling and considering only the arguments before the
court when it ruled. Id. The ruling must be upheld if it falls within the zone of reasonable
disagreement. Archie v. State, 340 S.W.3d 734, 738–39 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011).
Appellant’s sole issue asks whether the trial court abused its discretion by denying
a mistrial due to statements three venire members told an attorney they had made to one
another. Two settled principles govern the question. The first concerns who bears the
burden of proof; the second concerns what a movant must show on how the case was
decided.
3
First, the movant carries the burden of proving an allegation of juror misconduct.
See Hughes v. State, 24 S.W.3d 833, 842 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000). Statements made
outside deliberations can supply that proof, but the source of the statements matters.
When a sitting juror makes statements outside deliberations that indicate bias or partiality,
that bias may constitute misconduct depriving the accused of a fair and impartial trial.
Granados v. State, 85 S.W.3d 217, 235 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002). Statements by venire
members who do not serve, however, stand on different footing. Absent evidence that a
trial juror made, heard, or could have been influenced by the complained-of remarks, no
prejudice is shown. Rojas v. State, 986 S.W.2d 241, 251 (Tex. Crim. App. 1998).
This rule follows from the core purpose of voir dire. Its process exists to seat jurors
who can decide the case impartially; this means it will also identify and set aside those
who cannot. See Terrazas v. State, No. 02-25-00159-CR, 2026 Tex. App. LEXIS 4152,
at *2–3 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Apr. 30, 2026, pet. filed) (mem. op., not designated for
publication). Identifying a biased or interested venire member is thus the byproduct of a
functioning selection process, not evidence that the process failed.
Second, what matters is proof, rather than speculation, that bias reached someone
who actually decided the case. The inquiry is not whether prejudice existed somewhere
in the courtroom but whether the defendant was tried by an impartial jury. See Sanchez
v. State, 165 S.W.3d 707, 712 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005). A movant meets that burden by
connecting the misconduct to a seated juror, through evidence that the juror took part in
the conversation, overheard it, or learned of it before the verdict. See Rojas, 986 S.W.2d
at 251. Without that connection, the record establishes only that people who did not
decide the case held unfavorable opinions about the defendant. See id.
4
Applied here, the record establishes nothing more. The evidence came from a
single witness, an attorney with the firm representing Appellant, who recounted what one
venire member told her outside the courtroom. The panel members were never
questioned, though Appellant remained free to call the three participants and establish
whom else they had spoken to and who else was present.3 He did not. No evidence,
then, showed that a juror took part in the conversation, overheard it, or learned of it before
the verdict. Appellant did not carry his burden, and the ruling denying his motion fell within
the zone of reasonable disagreement. See Ocon, 284 S.W.3d at 884; Rojas, 986 S.W.2d
at 251.
We overrule Appellant’s sole issue.
CONCLUSION
We affirm the trial court’s judgment.
Lawrence M. Doss
Justice
Do not publish.
3 Appellant does not complain on appeal about the trial court’s refusal to question the seated jurors,
and we express no opinion on that ruling.
5