Local News
Appellate court upholds back-to-back life sentences
A Quinlan man will be spending several decades in prison, after his appeal of multiple felony convictions which resulted in multiple life sentences was denied.
One year ago, 196th District Court Judge Joe Leonard stacked Harold Donnie Halbrook’s four life sentences on convictions for aggravated sexual assault of a child, along with maximum punishments for convictions on four additional felony charges.
Wednesday, the Sixth District Court of Appeals in Texarkana upheld Halbrook’s conviction and sentences, according to Hunt County District Attorney Noble D. Walker Jr.
“We are extremely pleased that these convictions were affirmed,” Walker said. “The verdicts and lengthy prison sentences were certainly appropriate in these cases.”
Harold Donnie Halbrook, 32, of Quinlan, was found guilty by a jury in the 196th District Court following a one-day trial, of four counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child, two counts of indecency with a child by contact and two cases of indecency with a child by exposure.
Halbrook chose to have the jury decide his punishment, and the jury sentenced Halbrook to life in prison on each the aggravated sexual assault charges, 20 years in prison on the indecency by contact charges and 10 years in prison on each of the indecency by exposure charges.
Walker’s office filed a motion to have the sentences “stacked”, and Leonard ordered Halbrook to initially serve two concurrent life sentences for aggravated sexual assault of a child.
Then, upon completion of those sentences, his two sentences for indecency with a child by contact, two sentences for indecency with a child by exposure, with the remaining two sentences for aggravated sexual assault of a child will be served one at a time; each sentence beginning after the preceding sentence has been completed until all eight sentences have been served.
Halbrook was arrested by the Hunt County Sheriff’s Office in June 2008 after investigators received complaints he had assaulted two girls, ages 6 and 8, during the summer of 2007.
In his appeal Halbrook argued the evidence was legally and factually insufficient to support the convictions and that he received multiple convictions for the same offense.
The Court of Appeals voted unaanimously to uphold the trial court’s verdict and sentencing.
“My assistant, Keli Aiken, did an outstanding job representing the State on appeal and served as lead prosecutor at the trial court level,” Walker said. “Likewise, Nathan Earhart of the Sheriff’s Department, Kacy Flanagan of the Child Advocacy Center, and Kim Basinger, the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner, should be commended for their work in bringing this defendant to justice.”
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