On November 22, 2022, gunfire struck a home in Canutillo, Texas with more than thirty bullets; one occupant was injured. The State says fourteen-year-old F.M.V. later confessed to guiding two armed accomplices to the home and pointing it out before the shooting.¹ F.M.V. was taken into custody on December 1, 2022 and given warnings at a sheriff's substation. He was driven to the El Paso County jail, where, because a juvenile cannot be taken into the jail, a magistrate conducted the examination of the juvenile and his statement outside on the sidewalk. The State says officers stayed at a distance with a line of sight to keep physical custody of a juvenile accused of a violent felony, unable to hear or interact with him. F.M.V. says the magistrate's examination was brief, that officers were about 30 feet away, armed and in view, that a detective came when the magistrate beckoned and stood beside him when she signed the forms, and that the statement was made while he had been experiencing a manic episode.²

The State charged F.M.V. in the 65th District Court of El Paso County, a designated juvenile court, with five counts of deadly conduct (discharging a firearm), and a jury adjudicated him delinquent on all counts on March 22, 2024; the trial court sentenced him to three years in the Texas Juvenile Justice Department.¹ The Eighth Court of Appeals (Salas Mendoza, C.J., joined by Soto and Palafox, JJ.) reversed and remanded, holding the statement should be suppressed because the requirements of section 51.095 were not met on the unique facts, without adopting a rigid rule about where interviews may take place or where an officer may stand. Matter of F.M.V., 720 S.W.3d 494 (Tex. App.⁠—El Paso 2025, pet. filed) (also reported as In re F.M.V., 2025 WL 2146682).² The State petitioned for review on October 10, 2025, F.M.V. responded March 3, 2026, and the Court requested merits briefing; the State filed its brief on July 29, 2026 and F.M.V.'s brief is due in October 2026.

Petition for review from the Eighth Court of Appeals, which reversed a juvenile delinquency adjudication and remanded because the juvenile's signed statement should have been suppressed. The Court requested merits briefing; the State's brief is on file and the respondent's brief is due in October 2026. The Court has not yet granted the petition.

1. Whether a juvenile's signed incriminating statement is admissible under Family Code section 51.095 where law enforcement officers were located within sight during the magistration process but were unable to hear or interact with the juvenile. 2. Whether the court of appeals violated established standards of appellate review by conducting a de novo visual review of bodycam footage and substituting its judgment for the trial court's explicit, record-supported findings of historical fact.¹

Petitioner (State of Texas): Non-courthouse magistration settings do not compromise the statutory safeguards of section 51.095, and the magistrate here, who examined the juvenile outside to keep him out of an adult facility as section 51.12(f) requires, provided a neutral, independent examination. The court of appeals exceeded its authority by discarding the trial court's record-supported findings of fact based on its own review of the footage. Its "line-of-sight" definition of "presence" is inconsistent with the statutory scheme and unworkable: criminal caselaw generally interprets "presence" as sensory or physical, even where it has been extended it is tied to the reach of human senses, and the definition does not work when applied to the statute's other uses of "presence".¹

Respondent (F.M.V.): The court of appeals correctly reversed because the statement cannot be deemed knowing, intelligent or voluntary under the totality of the circumstances, which for a juvenile includes age, experience, education, intelligence, and capacity to understand the warnings. Section 51.095, strictly interpreted, was violated because the State was "present" during the magistrate's examination: officers stood within view, armed, and responded when the magistrate beckoned. F.M.V. argues this is not a question of first impression but an unusual fact pattern, the State cites no conflicting authority from other courts of appeals, and the court of appeals expressly declined to adopt a hard-and-fast rule.²

The State argues the case raises an issue of first impression on the proper interpretation of Family Code section 51.095, that the court of appeals appears to have committed an error of law of such importance to the state's jurisprudence that it should be corrected, and that it decided an important question of state law the Court should resolve.¹ F.M.V. responds that the case is not one of first impression and presents no conflict among courts of appeals.²

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