Deadly Weapon Sufficiency for Hands and Knife Assaults | Davis v. State (2025)

Davis v. State, 02-25-00209-CR, June 18, 2026.

On appeal from Criminal District Court No. 3, Tarrant County, Texas

Synopsis

The Fort Worth Court of Appeals held that the evidence was legally sufficient to support deadly-weapon findings for both hands and a knife in a family-violence prosecution. Repeated strangulation, beating, loss of consciousness, and severe resulting injuries supported findings that hands were used as deadly weapons, while wielding a knife to threaten harm and compel the complainant’s movement supported a deadly-weapon finding as to the knife.

Relevance to Family Law

Although Davis is a criminal appeal, its practical significance for Texas family-law litigators is immediate. Findings built on strangulation, coercive control, threats with a knife, forced movement, and medically documented trauma can materially shape protective-order strategy, temporary-orders advocacy, conservatorship restrictions, supervised possession arguments, family-violence presumptions under the Family Code, and disproportionality arguments in property division. For divorce and SAPCR counsel, the opinion is a reminder that the manner of assault matters as much as the instrument used: hands alone may support a deadly-weapon theory when the evidence shows occlusion, repeated choking, near-loss of consciousness, or serious neurologic injury, and that same evidentiary record can be powerful in parallel custody and safety litigation.

Case Summary

Fact Summary

The defendant was convicted of multiple family-violence offenses arising out of a pattern of escalating abuse against the complainant. The evidence showed repeated physical assaults over the course of the relationship, including punching, beating, strangulation, threats, forced compliance, and confinement-like conduct. The charged events included an episode in which he approached the complainant outside her apartment, tried to strangle her to the ground, forced her upstairs, repeatedly hit her, and repeatedly strangled her until she began turning blue and passing out, pausing and then resuming when she started breathing again.

The evidence also showed that after assaulting her inside the apartment, he took her phone and tablet, packed clothing, directed her to shower and change, and then armed himself with a kitchen knife. While holding the knife, he told her they had to leave and threatened to hurt her if she ran. She testified that she believed he would stab her if she did not comply. He then forced her to leave with him, took her to pick up her child, and brought both of them to his house.

The abuse continued there. After the complainant attempted to message someone for help, he again strangled, kicked, and hit her. By the time she reached the hospital days later, she had extensive bruising in different stages of healing, a bite mark, severe swelling, two black eyes, impaired mobility, and significant neurologic injuries, including a subdural hematoma and aneurysms involving the carotid and vertebral arteries. She required inpatient rehabilitation to relearn how to walk. Those facts were central to the court’s legal-sufficiency review of the deadly-weapon findings attached to the hands-based and knife-based assault counts.

Issues Decided

• Whether the evidence was legally sufficient to support the jury’s finding that the defendant used his hands as a deadly weapon during the assaults charged in Counts One and Four.
• Whether the evidence was legally sufficient to support the jury’s finding that the defendant used or exhibited a knife as a deadly weapon during the assault charged in Count Three.
• Whether the injuries and manner of use permitted a rational jury to find deadly-weapon use under Texas Penal Code Sections 22.02(a)(2) and 1.07(a)(17).

Rules Applied

The court applied the familiar legal-sufficiency standard under Jackson v. Virginia, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict and asking whether any rational factfinder could have found the challenged element beyond a reasonable doubt. The court also relied on the rule that appellate courts assess the elements against a hypothetically correct jury charge and defer to the jury’s role in resolving conflicts, weighing credibility, and drawing reasonable inferences from the cumulative force of the evidence.

On the deadly-weapon question, the governing statute was Texas Penal Code Section 1.07(a)(17), which defines a deadly weapon to include anything that in the manner of its use or intended use is capable of causing death or serious bodily injury. The assault statutes at issue included Texas Penal Code Sections 22.02(a)(2) and 22.01. Under Texas deadly-weapon jurisprudence, hands are not deadly weapons per se, but they may become deadly weapons if the manner of use, combined with the surrounding circumstances and resulting injuries, shows capability to cause death or serious bodily injury. A knife likewise need not inflict an actual stab wound if the evidence shows that it was used or exhibited in a threatening way that made it capable of causing death or serious bodily injury in the circumstances presented.

Application

The court treated the deadly-weapon analysis as a fact-intensive inquiry centered on capability as shown by manner of use, threatened use, and actual consequences. As to the hands-based counts, the record did not present a simple pushing or striking case. The complainant described repeated strangulation episodes, including choking that continued until she started turning blue and losing consciousness, followed by renewed strangulation when she began breathing again. The court had no difficulty viewing that evidence as proof that the hands, in the manner used, were capable of causing death or serious bodily injury. The medical evidence reinforced that inference. The complainant suffered a subdural hematoma, vascular injuries, severe neurologic compromise, and loss of ability to walk unaided. That combination of repeated occlusion and grave injury allowed the jury rationally to find deadly-weapon use as to the defendant’s hands.

The knife analysis turned less on physical injury from the blade and more on coercive exhibition and compelled movement. After the apartment assault, the defendant armed himself with a kitchen knife, declared that they had to go, and expressly threatened to hurt the complainant if she ran. She testified that she believed he would stab her if she failed to comply, and the surrounding circumstances made that fear objectively grounded: she had just been beaten and strangled, her phone had been taken, and she was under his physical control. In that setting, the knife was not merely present. It was wielded to enforce submission and facilitate the continued assaultive episode. The court concluded that a rational jury could find that the knife, in the manner of its use or intended use, was capable of causing death or serious bodily injury.

Holding

The court held that the evidence was legally sufficient to support the deadly-weapon findings for Counts One and Four, both involving the defendant’s hands. Repeated strangulation, choking to the point of blueness and near unconsciousness, continued beatings, and severe resulting injuries supported a rational jury’s conclusion that the hands were used in a manner capable of causing death or serious bodily injury under Section 1.07(a)(17).

The court also held that the evidence was legally sufficient to support the deadly-weapon finding for Count Three involving the knife. The defendant’s act of wielding the knife, threatening harm if the complainant tried to run, and forcing her to leave with him allowed the jury to find that the knife was used or exhibited as a deadly weapon, even absent a stabbing.

Consistent with those rulings, the court affirmed the convictions.

Practical Application

For family-law practitioners, Davis is best understood as an evidentiary roadmap. If your case involves strangulation, occlusion, coercive restraint, threats with a household weapon, or post-assault medical complications, this opinion helps frame the seriousness of the violence in a way that trial judges already recognize from criminal law. In temporary orders, protective orders, and final SAPCR trials, counsel should be prepared to present not only the fact of assault but the mechanism of harm: interruption of breathing, repeated choking cycles, color change, disorientation, loss of consciousness, inability to flee, seizure of phones, threats tied to a weapon, and the need for later medical care.

The opinion is particularly useful where the opposing party attempts to minimize conduct involving “only hands” or “only a displayed knife.” Davis undercuts both themes. In custody litigation, that matters when arguing that family violence was not isolated, was capable of lethal escalation, and directly bears on best interest, parental judgment, emotional regulation, and child safety. In divorce cases, the same record can support exclusive use of the residence, injunctive relief, restricted access to children, and a disproportionate division based on fault and family violence.

Strategically, practitioners should also think about cross-case evidentiary development. Hospital records, rehabilitation records, photographs showing bruising in different stages of healing, testimony about forced compliance, and statements reflecting fear of imminent harm may all do double duty across criminal, protective-order, and SAPCR proceedings. The lesson from Davis is that the legal conclusion often follows the factual texture. The more precisely the record captures the manner of use and the consequences, the stronger the violence narrative becomes in every forum.

Checklists

Building a Strangulation Record

• Obtain detailed testimony about how the hands were used, not just that the client was “choked”
• Pin down whether the victim could breathe, speak, swallow, or call out
• Develop evidence of color change, dizziness, ringing in the ears, confusion, vomiting, or loss of consciousness
• Ask whether the assailant stopped and resumed the choking cycle
• Document whether the victim feared death during the event
• Collect photographs of neck, face, eyes, chest, and extremities
• Secure EMS, ER, hospital, neurology, and rehabilitation records
• Look for vascular, neurologic, or head-trauma findings that show capability of serious bodily injury

Proving Weapon-Based Coercion Without a Stabbing

• Establish where the weapon came from and when it was displayed
• Elicit the exact words used in connection with the weapon
• Tie the weapon display to forced movement, confinement, or compelled compliance
• Show the surrounding circumstances that made the threat credible
• Document whether the victim believed the assailant would use the weapon
• Gather photos, scene evidence, body-cam, and 911 materials if available
• Do not concede that absence of a blade injury defeats the seriousness of the weapon use

Using the Record in Custody and Protective-Order Litigation

• Plead family violence with factual specificity rather than conclusory labels
• Connect strangulation and weapon threats to risk of future harm
• Request temporary restraining provisions tailored to phones, tracking, visits to residence, and pickup locations
• Seek supervised possession or suspension when the facts show coercive control and lethal-risk indicators
• Use medical records and photographs to corroborate live testimony
• Address child-endangerment implications when violence occurred during exchanges, pickups, or in the child’s presence
• Preserve findings and rulings that will matter later in modification or enforcement proceedings

Defending Against Minimization Themes

• Anticipate arguments that hands are not weapons and prepare case law and facts showing otherwise
• Emphasize manner of use, duration, repetition, and physical consequences
• Counter “no stabbing, no deadly weapon” arguments with evidence of threatened use and compelled submission
• Highlight injuries in different stages of healing to show course of conduct
• Use timeline exhibits to show escalation and continued control after each incident
• Make sure witnesses describe what they observed in concrete, sensory terms

Avoiding the Non-Prevailing Party’s Appellate Position

• Do not rely on atomized attacks on individual facts when the record shows cumulative force
• Challenge capability evidence only after confronting medical and contextual proof head-on
• If representing the accused in a parallel family matter, realistically assess the impact of criminal-record facts on conservatorship and possession positions
• Preserve objections and alternative theories early, but do not ignore the power of detailed victim and medical testimony
• Recognize that repeated strangulation plus serious injury is highly likely to support severe downstream findings in related family-law proceedings

Citation

Davis v. State, No. 02-25-00209-CR, 2026 WL ___ (Tex. App.—Fort Worth June 18, 2026, no pet.) (mem. op.).

Full Opinion

Read the full opinion here

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