JEMADARI CHINUA WILLIAMS v. THE STATE OF TEXAS (2026)

CONCURRING OPINION

A person commits aggravated promotion of prostitution “if he knowingly owns, invests in, finances, controls, supervises, or manages a prostitution enterprise that uses two or more prostitutes.”¹ The indictment in this case tracked the statutory language, disjunctively alleging all six methods of promoting prostitution without further description. When the case was first before it, this Court held that alleging all six methods was permissible.² Now we are asked to decide whether some or all of these six methods must be further described to convey adequate notice.

The Court correctly holds that the failure to describe some or all of these six methods—even if error—was harmless. The Court correctly explains that, due to his receipt of pretrial discovery, Appellant was fully aware of the State's theories of the case and yet chose to rely solely on a defensive theory that had nothing to do with any uncertainty regarding the six methods of promoting a prostitution enterprise—that there was in fact no prostitution enterprise. Having found no harm, the Court can legitimately decline to address the issue of error.³

But this is a case where an appealing party's claim lacks merit for multiple independent reasons, and while the Court need only rely on one such reason, I choose to address other reasons why—in my estimation—Appellant's notice claim fails. First, the sole reason articulated by defense counsel at the motion-to-quash hearing for saying that each of the six methods were insufficiently specific was that they overlap with each other. That reason is foreclosed by our earlier holding that the State can pursue all six methods and by the fact that the State did pursue all six methods. Because Appellant knew that all six methods were in play, any overlap between them was inconsequential. Second, even if Appellant's claim were broader than an “overlap claim,” it would still lack merit because the words codifying the six methods are reasonably specific in the context in which they appear—describing actions toward a business. And finally, the ways in which a defendant promotes the prostitution enterprise are merely different means of committing a single offense. So, when Appellant found out what evidence the State had against him through discovery, he knew he had to defend against everything that conformed to the indictment allegations.

A. Overlap challenge is foreclosed.

In its prior decision in this case, the Court held, “The State is not required to elect between alternative statutory methods of committing an offense alleged in an indictment.”⁴ The Court specifically pointed out that Appellant's claim at trial treated the six methods of promoting prostitution as alternative means of committing the same offense and that he did not raise a claim that the different methods codified separate offenses.⁵ Consequently, Appellant forfeited any claim that the six methods codified separate offenses.⁶ So, this Court operated under the assumption that the six methods are merely alternative means of committing the same offense.⁷ Under that assumption, the indictment did not err to allege all six methods.⁸

So on remand, Appellant advanced a claim that each of the six methods of committing the offense needed to be further defined. And the court of appeals agreed that at least some of them did, having a variety of meanings in standard dictionaries.⁹

But defense counsel's argument at the motion-to-quash hearing was based solely on the different methods overlapping each other. Initially, defense counsel focused on the natural overlap in the meaning of the six words to claim there was a notice problem:

The legislature includes words in the statute with intent, with a specific intent intended, okay, and if there was not in their mind when they wrote this statute a different definition for “invests in” and “finances,” they wouldn't have used both of those words. That would have been redundant, or “controls” or “supervises” or “manages.” Those three words could be used interchangeably, as well, but the legislature, in their great wisdom, used those three words, for some reason or other, and we have to give the fact that they put those in there for a purpose. What that purpose was, was that each one of those have a different meaning. Otherwise, once again, it would have been redundant to do so.

When the trial judge asked, “Do you have any authority for doing this?” defense counsel specifically claimed that the overlapping meanings of these words in common parlance was why they needed to be individually defined:

[T]he fact that they were not defined, Your Honor, by statute is important, and the fact that they included six different manner and means that are very closely related to each other tells me that the intent of the legislature was that each one of those had their own separate individual definition, because it would be absurd for them to include three words that meant the exact same thing such as the control, supervises or manages. Those are very similar and could be used interchangeably, and it would be absurd for us to read the statute to be a person commits an offense if he knowingly owns, invests in, invests in, controls, controls or controls a prostitution enterprise that uses two or more prostitutes, and for us to read it that they are -- to read it in any other way, that's the way it would sound. Because they are so closely interchangeable, they have to have their own meaning, and I think that Mr. Williams is entitled to a definition to each one of those or which one they choose to proceed forward on. That way we are not reading it in an absurd way, which is the way I just read it. It would be absurd to read the statute that way, but that's the way you have to read it without definitions.

All the trial participants understood that tracking the language of the statute was the general rule for conveying notice.¹⁰ The only reason defense counsel gave at the hearing for deviating from that rule was that the words codifying the six methods in the statute had overlapping meanings in common parlance.¹¹

The problem with defense counsel's reasoning is that the State alleged all six methods. Because all six methods were in play, any variability in meaning due solely to an overlap could not affect the degree of notice conveyed by the State. Whether the meanings overlapped or not, Appellant knew that he needed to defend against all the conduct that those six methods covered. And under the trial participants’ assumption that the six methods were merely alternative methods of committing a single offense, a jury would not need to unanimously agree on any one method.¹² Consequently, if the trial court was correct that the indictment could validly allege all six methods of the offense, then it was also correct that any overlap between the methods had no effect on the notice the indictment provided to Appellant. Appellant failed to provide the trial court with a valid reason to quash the indictment.

The suggestion on appeal that the six methods needed to be further defined because the words each had very different possible meanings—apart from their redundancy with each other—was not a reason that was conveyed to the trial court. To preserve error, a party must “state[ ] grounds for the ruling that the complaining party sought from the trial court with sufficient specificity to make the trial court aware of the complaint.”¹³ While Appellant preserved a Mays claim,¹⁴ the only reason he gave for finding notice insufficient under Mays was that some of the words in the indictment overlapped. The trial court should not be faulted for finding that reason to be insufficient to quash the indictment.

B. The methods of commission are reasonably specific.

An indictment must state “[e]verything ․ which is necessary to be proved.”¹⁵ An indictment is sufficient if it

charges the commission of the offense in ordinary and concise language in such a manner as to enable a person of common understanding to know what is meant, and with that degree of certainty that will give the defendant notice of the particular offense with which he is charged, and enable the court, on conviction to pronounce the proper judgment.16

Ordinarily, an indictment sufficiently alleges an offense if it tracks the statutory language.¹⁷ An indictment does not have to plead evidentiary matters.¹⁸ But when a statute “uses an undefined term of indeterminate or variable meaning,” a “more specific pleading” can be required “in order to notify the defendant of the nature of the charges against him.”¹⁹

When a word is not defined, it may have “any meaning which is acceptable in common parlance.”²⁰ But while dictionary definitions are relevant to the meaning of an undefined word, a word must also be construed in context, according to the rules of grammar and common usage.²¹

In concluding that the six methods of promoting a prostitution enterprise are “terms of indeterminate and variable meaning,” the court of appeals cited a number of definitions that simply do not fit the statutory context in which the defined word appears. For example, one of the court of appeals's definitions of “control” is “to reduce the incidence or severity of especially to innocuous levels.”²² That definition applies to something like a fire or disease. No one would think that someone “controls” a prostitution enterprise by trying to reduce the enterprise to an innocuous level. And several of the court of appeals's definitions of “manage” are patently inapplicable.²³ To “make and keep compliant,” applies to a living creature, not a business entity.²⁴ And one can “direct the professional career of” a person, not a business entity.²⁵ And the “succeed in accomplishing” definition applies to a task, not a business.²⁶

In other instances, the court of appeals cited definitions that—at least in the “prostitution enterprise” context—are not that different from each other. The three monetary definitions of “invest” and the three definitions of “finance” given by that court all involve causing money or something of monetary value to flow to the organization.²⁷ And various definitions of control—exercising influence over, having power over, incorporating controls in—all amount to the same thing in a prostitution enterprise.²⁸ And while one might point to a theoretical difference between having power and exercising that power, a person who has power in a criminal organization is inevitably going to exercise it, eliminating any practical distinction. And “manage” really has one business-oriented definition: “to exercise executive, administrative, and supervisory direction of.”²⁹ To the extent other definitions of that term could be shoehorned into the business context—such as “treat with care” or “to work upon or try to alter for a purpose”³⁰ —they would at worst be subsets of the business definition and subsumed by it.

And in some instances, the multiplicity of definitions for a particular term merely shows overlap with another term in the statute. Various definitions of “control,” “supervise,” and “manage” reveal overlap between those words. And the non-monetary definitions of “invest”—investing time, effort, or emotion”³¹ —if they have any applicability at all, would simply cause that term to overlap with the aforementioned overlapping terms. And the monetary definitions of “invest” cause it to overlap to some degree with “finance.” But as I have previously explained, our earlier decision in Williams already settled that matter.³² The indictment includes all six of the different methods of promoting a prostitution enterprise, and under our prior decision in Williams, that is allowed. Any variability in meaning that is due solely to an overlap does not affect the degree of notice conveyed by the State.

Ultimately, the aggravated-promotion-of-prostitution statute covers people, other than mere prostitutes or customers, who are entitled to proceeds from the prostitution business or who make the business operate through personal effort or financial support. A “person of common understanding” would have no trouble understanding this.

C. Everything Appellant did with the prostitution enterprise was all one offense anyway.

An analysis of the aggravated-promotion-of-prostitution statute shows that all the methods of promoting a prostitution enterprise, between or within the six terms codifying those methods, constitutes but a single offense. “[T]he focus or ‘gravamen’ of a penal provision should be regarded as the ‘best indicator’ when it comes to determining whether the Legislature intended to define more than one offense.”³³ In determining focus, “three overarching types of gravamen” exist: “(1) the result of conduct, (2) the nature of conduct, or (3) the circumstances surrounding the conduct.”³⁴ If an offense has both a nature and a circumstance element, we must determine which conduct is the statute's focus.³⁵ “A circumstance element can prescribe the gravamen of the offense if it makes otherwise innocent conduct criminal.”³⁶

In the present case, the statute contains a “circumstance” that ties all the different methods of commission together: the existence of a “prostitution enterprise.” This is similar to the offense of failure to stop and render aid, in which the different methods of commission—the failure to do a number of different things—are tied together by the existence of an “accident.”³⁷ And there is nothing inherently criminal in “owning, investing in, financing, controlling, supervising, or managing” something. What makes the activity criminal is that the “something” is a “prostitution enterprise.” Under that reasoning, the offense of aggravated promotion of prostitution has a circumstance focus, and that circumstance defines the number of offenses. So, a single “prostitution enterprise” gives rise to a single offense, and the acts of owning, investing, financing, controlling, supervising, and managing are all alternative means of commission.³⁸

Also, the fact that the six words codifying these acts have overlapping definitions suggest that the acts are alternative means rather than separate offenses.³⁹ This contrasts with sex offenses, where the touching of separate body parts—sexual organ, anus, and breast—are completely independent acts.⁴⁰

And if these different methods of commission are part of the same offense, it would seem to follow that different acts that fall within the individual methods are part the same offense. If, for example, both “investing” and “managing” a prostitution enterprise are part of a single offense, how can one say that different instances of investing or managing create separate offenses? Even if that were possible, various terms suggest continuous operation rather than a single discrete event. One “owns” a prostitution enterprise over a period of time. Likewise, “managing” and “controlling” suggest more than a single event. Even if investing, financing, and supervising might be ambiguous, they take—under the doctrine of noscitur a sociis—the character of these other words in the series.⁴¹

And if all the different acts of promoting a prostitution enterprise are part of a single offense, then the defendant knows he has to defend against all of them. And he would know what those were from the discovery provided by the State (which defense counsel acknowledged was complete).

D. Conclusion

As the Court has held, Appellant has suffered no harm because he knew the State's theories of the case and advanced a defense that had nothing to do with any ambiguity in the indictment. But Appellant's claim would fail for other reasons that I have explored: (1) his narrow “overlap” claim lacks merit under Williams II, (2) a broader Mays claim also lacks merit because the words codifying the different methods of commission were reasonably specific, and (3) any uncertainty in the terms was of no consequence because all conduct promoting a prostitution enterprise was part of a single offense, requiring him to defend against all the conduct the State knew about that conformed to the indictment's allegations.

With these comments, I join the Court's opinion.

FOOTNOTES

1.   Tex. Penal Code § 43.04(a) (West 2018).

2.   Williams v. State, 685 S.W.3d 110, 111 (Tex. Crim. App. 2024).

3.   State v. Plambeck, 182 S.W.3d 365, 367 n.10 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005) (“A court is not required to address issues that become moot because of the resolution of other issues.”).

4.   Williams, 685 S.W.3d at 111.

5.   Id. at 114.

6.   Id.

7.   Id.

8.   Id. at 114-15.

9.   Williams v. State, 720 S.W.3d 454, 463-64 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 2025).

10.   Defense counsel himself acknowledged, “But an indictment must go beyond statutory language only when the statute is not completely descriptive of the offense.” He also acknowledged this in his written motion to quash.

11.   Similarly, defense counsel's written motion to quash focused on the “interchangeable” meanings of the various words. The one exception is that the motion asked if “invest” could cover a “John” (a customer) that pays money to utilize the services of the business. But when given the opportunity, defense counsel did not raise this argument at the hearing, so he forfeited it. Moreover, that argument was a nonstarter, because no “person of common understanding,” see infra at n.16 and associated text, would think that a person invests in a business by merely purchasing its services as a customer and because a separate prostitution statute at the time of Appellant's conduct proscribed the hiring of a prostitute. See Tex. Penal Code § 43.02(b) (West 2018).

12.   See Floyd v. State, 714 S.W.3d 9, 15 (Tex. Crim. App. 2024) (“The robbery by threat to place Diane Porter in fear of imminent bodily injury or death or the robbery causing bodily injury to Diane Porter were simply alternative methods of committing the same robbery offense. Hence, the trial court did not err by instructing the jury that it was required to be unanimous as to whether Appellant was guilty of aggravated robbery by threat or bodily- injury aggravated robbery as no such unanimity was required.”).

13.   Tex. R. App. P. 33.1(a)(1)(A).

14.   State v. Mays, 967 S.W.2d 404 (Tex. Crim. App. 1998).

15.   Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 21.03.

16.   Id. art. 21.11.

17.   Curry v. State, 30 S.W.3d 394, 398 (Tex. Crim. App. 2000); Mays, 967 S.W.2d at 407.

18.   Curry, supra.

19.   Mays, 967 S.W.2d at 407.

20.   Dunham v. State, 666 S.W.3d 477, 484 (Tex. Crim. App. 2023).

21.   Milton v. State, 721 S.W.3d 300, 303 (Tex. Crim. App. 2025). And the context of the entire statutory scheme might also be relevant. See Becerra v. State, 685 S.W.3d 120, 134 & n.66 (Tex. Crim. App. 2024). See also supra at n.11 (mere customer not an investor in light of separate prostitution statute).

22.   Williams v. State, 720 S.W.3d at 463.

23.   See id. for definitions.

24.   See https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/manage (entry 1c, ex. “can't manage their child”) (viewed on May 27, 2026).

25.   See id. (entry 2, ex. “an agency that manages entertainers”).

26.   See id. (entry 3, ex. “managed to escape from prison”).

27.   See Williams, 720 S.W.3d at 463, for definitions.

28.   See id. for definitions.

29.   https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/manage (entry 1a, first ex. “manage a business”) (viewed on May 27, 2026).

30.   See Williams, 720 S.W.3d at 463, for definitions.

31.   See id. for definitions.

32.   Williams, 685 S.W.3d at 111.

33.   Floyd, 714 S.W.3d at 13.

34.   Ex parte Cook, 630 S.W.3d 65, 66-67 (Tex. Crim. App. 2021).

35.   Id. at 67.

36.   Id.

37.   See Huffman v. State, 267 S.W.3d 902, 908-09 (Tex. Crim. App. 2008).

38.   See id. at 909 (Failure to do various things is part of one offense of failure to stop and render aid when there is one accident and one victim.).

39.   Cf. id. at 909 (“Unlike the touching of various body parts found in sex offenses, which are independent acts, the ‘stop,’ ‘return,’ and ‘remain’ requirements are not independent of each other. Rather, they are serial requirements that all relate, step-by-step, to what an actor must do with respect to the scene of an accident.”).

40.   See id.

41.   See McDonnell v. United States, 579 U.S. 550, 568-69 (2016) (“Under the familiar interpretive canon noscitur a sociis, ‘a word is known by the company it keeps.’ While ‘not an inescapable rule,’ this canon ‘is often wisely applied where a word is capable of many meanings in order to avoid the giving of unintended breadth’ ” to a statute.). Of course, there is a point at which one would want to say that a defendant has committed aggravated promotion of prostitution more than once—at the very least, when the defendant engages in the proscribed conduct after a previous conviction of the offense. But one can simply view that situation as activity relating to a new, and thus different, “prostitution enterprise.”