Ex Parte Brayden Channing Coin v. the State of Texas

In the
Court of Appeals
Second Appellate District of Texas
at Fort Worth
___________________________

No. 02-25-00470-CR
___________________________

EX PARTE BRAYDEN CHANNING COIN

On Appeal from Criminal District Court No. 2
Tarrant County, Texas
Trial Court No. C-2-W012707-1661165-AP

Before Sudderth, C.J.; Kerr and Birdwell, JJ.
Memorandum Opinion by Chief Justice Sudderth
MEMORANDUM OPINION

Appellant Brayden Channing Coin challenges the habeas court’s denial of his

request for relief from the restraints of his deferred adjudication community

supervision. See Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 11.072, §§ 1, 8. He argues that his trial

counsel (Trial Counsel) provided ineffective assistance by (1) failing to investigate the

flaws in the State’s evidence that he committed his crime after—rather than before—

he turned 17; (2) failing to leverage those flaws to challenge the adult criminal court’s

jurisdiction; and (3) failing to advise him of the jurisdictional and evidentiary

significance of the age issue. According to Coin, Trial Counsel’s deficient

performance not only undermined confidence in the outcome of his case but also

rendered his plea bargain involuntary by “goad[ing]” him into accepting the State’s

offer when he would have preferred to proceed to trial.

But Coin’s arguments rely on his own version of the facts—not those found by

the habeas court. Because the habeas court’s fact findings are both dispositive and

supported by the record, we will affirm.

I. Background

Coin’s restraint stems from his sexual assault of a girl three years his junior—

Victim.1

1
Victim was three years and two months younger than Coin. Cf. Tex. Penal
Code § 22.011(e)(2) (providing affirmative defense in certain instances of sexual
assault if the defendant is, among other things, “not more than three years older than

2
A. Evidence and Plea Bargain
Coin admitted to law enforcement that when he was “13 or 14,” he sexually

assaulted Victim. See generally Tex. Penal Code § 22.011. He did not expressly confess

to having assaulted her after he turned 17. See id. § 8.07(b) (stating general rule that

unless an exception applies, “a person may not be prosecuted for or convicted of any

offense committed before reaching 17 years of age”). But other evidence suggested

that he had.

Victim told Child Protective Services that “[f]rom age 11 yo –15 yo, [Coin]

molested [her].” And in her forensic interview, she relayed two specific instances of

abuse that occurred “over the course of a year” when she was in the eighth grade—

when Coin was 16 or 17.

Victim first described an incident that occurred the night before one of her

eighth-grade STAAR exams.2 A law enforcement detective determined that based on

the Texas Education Agency’s calendar for STAAR exams, Victim’s STAAR testing

had occurred in the latter part of the school year after Coin had turned 17.

Additionally, both Coin and Victim described an incident of sexual assault that

occurred while they were playing Fortnite on Xbox in Coin’s father’s bedroom. And

the victim”). To protect Victim’s privacy, we refer to her using an alias. Cf. Tex. R.
App. P. 9.10(a)(3).
2
STAAR refers to the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness
assessment program. See Tex. Educ. Code § 39.0225 (providing for transition from
STARR program to new program “beginning with the 2027–2028 school year”).

3
upon investigation, a law enforcement detective learned that Fortnite had not been

publicly released for Xbox until after Coin turned 17. Based on this evidence, the

State indicted Coin for sexual assault of a child and several related criminal offenses

that he was alleged to have committed after his 17th birthday. See id. §§ 8.07(b),

22.011(a)(2).

Trial Counsel was appointed to represent Coin, and as Trial Counsel later

explained,3 Coin confided in him that—although his confession to law enforcement

had been limited to his juvenile offenses—he had sexually assaulted Victim after he

turned 17 as well. According to Trial Counsel, Coin expressed his desire to be placed

on probation rather than proceeding to trial, and Trial Counsel advised him of the

greater likelihood of his receiving probation in the adult criminal system as opposed

to the juvenile system given his videotaped confession of his juvenile offenses. Thus,

“at [Coin’s] behest,” Trial Counsel pursued a plea bargain for probation on his adult

criminal charges.

And, ultimately, Trial Counsel succeeded. In exchange for Coin’s pleading

guilty to sexual assault, the State agreed to recommend deferred adjudication

community supervision on that charge and to dismiss all of Coin’s related adult

3
Trial Counsel’s explanation came more than a year after his representation of
Coin had ended, in response to Coin’s allegations of ineffective assistance. See infra
Section I.B.

4
criminal charges. Coin accepted the offer and signed plea paperwork confirming that

he was entering into the plea bargain “knowingly, freely, and voluntarily.”

B. Habeas Application
But after a year of deferred adjudication community supervision, Coin soured

on the plea bargain. He filed an application for writ of habeas corpus arguing that

Trial Counsel had provided ineffective assistance by failing to investigate Fortnite’s

availability date, failing to move to transfer the case to a juvenile court’s jurisdiction

on that basis, and failing to advise Coin regarding the jurisdictional and evidentiary

significance of his age. See Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 11.072 (providing habeas

procedure for community supervision cases); Ex parte Roberts, No. 02-25-00308-CR,

2025 WL 3683998, at *4 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Dec. 18, 2025, no pet.) (mem. op.,

not designated for publication) (explaining that “[a]n individual may challenge the

legal validity of an order imposing community supervision by applying for a writ of

habeas corpus”).

Coin produced evidence—an affidavit from an investigator specializing in

digital forensics—showing that Fortnite had been available before his 17th birthday

“exclusively on PC/Mac” for certain “Alpha and Beta” testers who received an

invitation from the game’s developer.4 Coin argued that Fortnite’s release date was

the State’s “singular” evidence that he had committed sexual assault after his 17th

4
The investigator noted that PC users could have used compatible Xbox
controllers to “play on the PC as though they [we]re playing on an Xbox.”

5
birthday, so if Trial Counsel had exposed the flaw in this evidence by investigating

Fortnite’s prerelease availability, he could have prevailed on a motion to transfer the

case to a juvenile court’s jurisdiction. Coin asserted that Trial Counsel had failed to

take these actions and that such failures caused his case to be prosecuted in the wrong

jurisdiction—the adult criminal court. In addition, Coin asserted that Trial Counsel

had failed to adequately advise him of the jurisdictional and evidentiary significance of

his age, rendering his plea involuntary because had he been properly advised, he

would have proceeded to trial rather than accepting the State’s plea bargain offer.

Both the State and Trial Counsel responded. See Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art.

11.072, § 5(b). The State

• cited Victim’s and Coin’s statements that “they were playing Fortnite on an
Xbox gaming system” at the time of the relevant assault and noted that Coin’s
investigator had averred that Fortnite’s prerelease availability was limited to
“PC/Mac” and that the game was not available for Xbox prior to Coin’s 17th
birthday;

• highlighted that Coin “d[id] not even claim that he was an alpha or beta tester
of Fortnite” anyway, much less offer evidence showing as much; and

• argued that, regardless, the Fortnite-related evidence was not the only evidence
that Coin had committed sexual assault after he had turned 17 because Victim
had also described a separate assault occurring the night before her eighth-
grade STAAR test.
Trial Counsel, meanwhile, verified that

• Coin had admitted to him that he had sexually assaulted Victim after he had
turned 17;

• Coin had expressed a desire “to be assessed a probation”—“[t]rial was not then
a goal of [Coin’s]”;

6
• Trial “Counsel had related to [Coin] how his age at the time of the
offenses . . . w[as] relevant to either or both a Juvenile and ‘adult’ prosecution,
and that [Trial] Counsel did not think [a j]uvenile prosecution would result in a
probation,” which was what Coin had said he wanted;

• Trial Counsel and Coin had discussed the strength of the State’s case regarding
Coin’s juvenile offenses and the likely outcome of a juvenile trial;

• The deferred adjudication plea bargain had been procured “at [Coin’s] behest”;
and

• Coin “kn[e]w the significance of his age at the time of the Indicted offenses”
when he agreed to “the desired probation plea.”
The habeas court5 believed the State’s evidence and Trial Counsel’s

verifications, and it adopted detailed findings of fact and conclusions of law stating as

much. See id. art. 11.072, § 7(a). Based on those findings, the habeas court denied

relief.

II. Standard of Review

We review a habeas court’s denial of relief for an abuse of discretion. Roberts,

2025 WL 3683998, at *4; Ex parte Juara, 643 S.W.3d 702, 712 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth

2021, pet. ref’d). When, as here, a habeas applicant claims that his trial counsel

provided ineffective assistance, the applicant bears the burden to show by a

preponderance of the evidence that among other things, his trial counsel’s allegedly

deficient performance prejudiced his defense. Roberts, 2025 WL 3683998, at *4–5; Ex

The district court of conviction referred the habeas proceeding to a criminal
5

law magistrate, and after the magistrate ruled, the district court adopted and ratified
the magistrate judge’s actions. See Tex. Gov’t Code §§ 54.656(a)(4), .662(c).

7
parte Johnson, No. 02-25-00242-CR, 2025 WL 2736522, at *2 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth

Sept. 25, 2025, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication); Rench v. State, No.

02-23-00143-CR, 2024 WL 482232, at *4 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Feb. 8, 2024, no

pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication).

A trial counsel’s failure to investigate—whether reasonable or not—does not

prejudice a defendant’s case unless “the investigation would have revealed [evidence]

that reasonably could have changed the result of the case.” Roberts, 2025 WL

3683998, at *6; see Rench, 2024 WL 482232, at *5 (noting that “[a] claim for ineffective

assistance based on . . . [a] failure to investigate . . . fails absent a showing of what the

investigation would have revealed that reasonably could have changed the result of

the case”). And for much the same reason, a trial counsel’s failure to file a pretrial

motion does not prejudice a defendant’s case unless the motion would have been

meritorious.6 See Jackson v. State, 973 S.W.2d 954, 957 (Tex. Crim. App. 1998); Brown v.

State, No. 02-10-00452-CR, 2012 WL 335851, at *11 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Feb. 2,

2012, no pet.) (per curiam) (mem. op., not designated for publication); Deaver v. State,

314 S.W.3d 481, 484 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2010, no pet.). Likewise, a trial

counsel’s alleged failure to advise on a given matter does not prejudice a defendant’s

case unless, but for the trial counsel’s failure, the defendant would not have pleaded

6
The motion’s merit (or lack thereof) also factors into whether the trial counsel
performed deficiently by failing to file it. See Ex parte Chandler, 182 S.W.3d 350, 356
(Tex. Crim. App. 2005) (order) (rejecting ineffective assistance complaint and noting
that “a reasonably competent counsel need not perform a useless or futile act”).

8
guilty and would have insisted on going to trial. Ex parte Moody, 991 S.W.2d 856, 857–

58 (Tex. Crim. App. 1999); Roberts, 2025 WL 3683998, at *4–5; Johnson, 2025 WL

2736522, at *2.

In assessing whether a habeas applicant has carried his burden, the habeas

court “is the sole finder of fact.” Ex parte Sanchez, 625 S.W.3d 139, 144 (Tex. Crim.

App. 2021); State v. Guerrero, 400 S.W.3d 576, 583 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013); Roberts,

2025 WL 3683998, at *4; Johnson, 2025 WL 2736522, at *2. We afford “almost total

deference to [the habeas] court’s factual findings when [they are] supported by the

record, especially when those findings are based upon credibility and demeanor.”

Guerrero, 400 S.W.3d at 583; see Johnson, 2025 WL 2736522, at *2; Juara, 643 S.W.3d at

712. Such deference applies “even when no witnesses testify and all of the evidence is

submitted through affidavits, depositions, or interrogatories.” Guerrero, 400 S.W.3d at

583; Roberts, 2025 WL 3683998, at *4; see Sanchez, 625 S.W.3d at 144 (“Findings of

historical fact made at the trial level [by the habeas court] are still given deference on

appeal even when the findings are based solely on affidavits.”).

III. Discussion

Coin’s two overlapping appellate complaints largely mirror the complaints he

raised below.7 He argues that Trial Counsel was ineffective by failing to investigate

7
In both the habeas court and on appeal, Coin organizes his grounds for relief
as (1) an assertion that Trial Counsel was ineffective for (a) failing to seek a transfer,
(b) failing to investigate and (c) failing to adequately advise him; and (2) an assertion

9
the flaws in the State’s Fortnite-related evidence, failing to move to transfer the case

to the juvenile court’s jurisdiction on the basis of such flaws, and failing to advise

Coin of the jurisdictional and evidentiary significance of his age. According to Coin,

Trial Counsel’s first two failures caused the case to be prosecuted in the adult criminal

court while his third failure “goaded” Coin into involuntarily accepting the State’s plea

bargain when he would have preferred to proceed to a jury trial.

But Coin’s appellate arguments rely on his own version of the facts rather than

those found by the habeas court.8 And the habeas court’s findings confirm that

(1) even if Trial Counsel had investigated the Fortnite-related issue and moved to

transfer the case on that basis, those efforts would not have been fruitful; and (2) Trial

Counsel did, in fact, advise Coin of his age’s significance, and regardless, such

allegedly insufficient advice did not materially contribute to his plea decision.

that Trial Counsel’s ineffectiveness rendered his plea involuntary. We restructure
Coin’s complaints for organizational purposes.

Portions of Coin’s brief attempt to expand beyond his original grounds for
8

habeas relief and to add new legal arguments. He asserts, for example, that Trial
Counsel provided deficient legal advice regarding the likely outcome of a trial and that
some of the State’s habeas evidence was inadmissible. Because Coin failed to raise
these grounds below, they are not preserved for our review, and we need not address
them. See Tex. R. App. P. 33.1(a) (requiring a timely, specific complaint in the trial
court “[a]s a prerequisite to presenting [the] complaint for appellate review”); Johnson,
2025 WL 2736522, at *2 (noting in habeas appeal that defendant had failed to
preserve appellate complaint by raising it in the habeas court).

10
A. Failures to Investigate or Move to Transfer
To prove that Trial Counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to

investigate Fortnite’s prerelease availability and failing to move for a transfer on that

basis,9 Coin was required to show that such pursuits would have been fruitful. See

Roberts, 2025 WL 3683998, at *6; Brown, 2012 WL 335851, at *11. And on appeal,

Coin asserts that they would have been, relying on two factual premises: that the

Fortnite-related incident was the only incident of adult sexual assault supporting his

indictment and that Fortnite’s prerelease availability called the date of that incident

into question. But the habeas court found the opposite.

The habeas court found—and the record confirms—that Victim had

“described an instance of sexual assault which occurred the day before STAAR testing

in her eighth-grade year, which occurred after [Coin’s] seventeenth birthday, [so] there

was evidence that [he] was an adult at the time of the alleged offenses beyond the

release date of Fortnite.” Thus, separate and apart from the Fortnite-related incident,

the State had other evidence that Coin had committed sexual assault after his 17th

birthday.

9
Coin’s argument assumes that as a general matter, a motion challenging an
adult criminal court’s jurisdiction under Article 4.18 of the Code of Criminal
Procedure is appropriate when the State relies on weak evidence of the offense date.
See generally Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 4.18. The State disagrees with this application
of Article 4.18. We need not address the issue, though, because either way, the habeas
court found that the State’s evidence of Coin’s age was not as weak as Coin alleged.
See Tex. R. App. P. 47.1.

11
Moreover, the habeas court found—and the record confirms—that even as to

the Fortnite-related incident, the game’s limited prerelease availability was inapposite.

Coin’s investigator averred that Fortnite’s prerelease availability was “exclusively on

PC/Mac,” and as the habeas court noted, both Victim and Applicant recalled the

Fortnite-related sexual assault occurring while they “played Fortnite on an Xbox

gaming system”—there was “no evidence that [Coin] and Victim played Fortnite

together on any platform other than Xbox.”10

Without these two faulty factual premises, Coin did not and does not show that

Trial Counsel’s failure to investigate or move for a transfer prejudiced his case. Even

if Trial Counsel had investigated Fortnite’s prerelease availability for “PC/Mac,” such

discovery would not have undermined the State’s evidence, much less supported a

challenge to the adult criminal court’s jurisdiction. Cf. Rench, 2024 WL 482232, at *5

(rejecting defendant’s argument that trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by

failing to investigate defendant’s mental health history when defendant failed to show

that such investigation would have produced outcome-changing evidence); Brown,

2012 WL 335851, at *11 (reiterating that “to establish that counsel was ineffective

for . . . failing to file a motion . . . , the appellant must first show that the motion

would have been granted”); Deaver, 314 S.W.3d at 484–87 (rejecting defendant’s

ineffective assistance complaint based on trial counsel’s failure to file a motion to

10
Moreover, as the habeas court also found, there was “no evidence” that either
Coin or Victim “was involved in any of the testing phases of Fortnite.”

12
suppress because defendant could not demonstrate that the motion would have been

successful).

We overrule these portions of Coin’s appellate issues.

B. Failure to Advise
Coin’s appellate complaints regarding Trial Counsel’s other alleged failure are

even more dependent on faulty factual premises. Coin insists that Trial Counsel failed

to advise him regarding the jurisdictional and evidentiary significance of his age,

thereby “goad[ing]” him into accepting an involuntary plea bargain when he would

have preferred to proceed to trial.

But as previously discussed, the habeas court’s findings confirmed that Coin’s

age did not have the evidentiary or jurisdictional significance that Coin claimed it did.

Again, there was evidence that Coin had committed sexual assault after he turned

17—both on the night before Victim’s eighth-grade STAAR test and while he and

Victim were playing Fortnite on Xbox—and Trial Counsel verified that Coin had

privately admitted as much. So, to the extent that Coin argues Trial Counsel should

have advised him regarding the alleged flaws in the State’s Fortnite-related evidence

and the effects of such flaws on the adult criminal court’s jurisdiction, that advice

would have been either inconsequential—in keeping with the investigation and

motion—or erroneous—if Trial Counsel had advised differently. See supra Section

III.A.

13
Moreover, the habeas court found, and Trial Counsel verified, that Trial

Counsel had, in fact, “informed [Coin] of the significance of his age at the time of the

offenses indicted.”

Plus, the habeas court also found that Coin “did not want to go to trial on the

charges alleged in the indictment” anyway. Rather, the habeas court believed Trial

Counsel’s verification that Coin’s “primary goal was to get probation.”

In sum, Coin not only failed to show that his age was consequential and that

Trial Counsel failed to advise him on the issue, but he also failed to demonstrate that

but for Trial Counsel’s alleged failure, he would have rejected the plea bargain offer

that gave him his desired outcome—deferred adjudication community supervision—

and insisted on an outcome he did not want—a jury trial. See Moody, 991 S.W.2d at

858 (holding defendant showed prejudice but noting that “not every reliance on

erroneous advice is sufficient to justify rendering the plea vulnerable to collateral

attack”); Roberts, 2025 WL 3683998, at *5 (explaining that, “[t]o establish prejudice

when an applicant claims counsel’s alleged deficient performance resulted in a guilty

plea, the applicant must show a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s errors,

he would not have pleaded guilty and would have insisted on going to trial”).

We overrule these final portions of Coin’s appellate complaints.

IV. Conclusion

The habeas court is the “sole finder of fact,” Sanchez, 625 S.W.3d at 144;

Johnson, 2025 WL 2736522, at *2, and its fact findings are both supported by the

14
record and fatal to Coin’s appellate complaints. We affirm the habeas court’s order

denying relief. See Tex. R. App. P. 43.2(a).

/s/ Bonnie Sudderth

Bonnie Sudderth
Chief Justice

Do Not Publish
Tex. R. App. P. 47.2(b)

Delivered: May 21, 2026

15