Under Section 12.42 (c) if a defendant is convicted of agg. sexual assault in 2004 in another county, and is on trial for agg. sexual assault in my county in 2006, is the defendant looking at a mandatory life sentence if covicted on my charge? The problem is these incidents occured at about the same time 2002, so we are not sure which incident happened first. The onethat the defendant has already been convicted or in my county which he is set to stand trial. Therefore, in order to get the "life" enhancement does the conviction for agg. sexual assault have to happen prior to the commission of the act i.e. new agg. sexual assault (because I don't know if convicted agg. sexual assault incident happened before or after ours) or does the conivction for agg. sexual assault have to be prior to trial and it does not matter which agg. sexual assault took palce first? Any help would be great!!! Thanks, Scott Greenbaum, ADA, Val Verde County

For the conviction to qualify for use as an enhancement, the defendant must commit the new offense after the conviction for the prior offense is final.

The date in the indictment is the key. If your trial has a date after the date in the prior indictment you are fine. Because no matter what the evidence shows on the "on or about" the jury's verdict and judgment will say "guilty as charged in the indictment."