HOUSTON – The legal battle over Antonio “A.J.” Armstrong Jr.’s murder conviction is now focused squarely on whether a public evidentiary hearing should move forward.
In a sharply worded filing responding to the Harris County District Attorney’s request for intervention, Armstrong’s appellate attorney, Patrick McCann, argues that prosecutors are misrepresenting both the facts and the law in their effort to block a court-ordered hearing tied to his motion for a new trial.
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“The State claims it should not have to endure the horror of an open public hearing because the Court of Appeals has no authority to order such a thing,” McCann wrote. “Respectfully, it is wrong on the facts…and it is wrong on the law.”
KPRC 2 News reached out to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office regarding the latest filing. We haven’t yet received a response.
Armstrong was convicted in 2023 of capital murder in the deaths of his parents, Dawn and Antonio Armstrong Sr., who were found shot inside their Bellaire home in 2016. His first two trials ended in hung juries before a third jury returned a guilty verdict.
In November, the Fourteenth Court of Appeals ruled that the trial judge erred by denying Armstrong’s motion for a new trial without holding a hearing. The court found that Armstrong had raised “reasonable grounds” warranting further review and ordered the trial court to conduct a full evidentiary hearing by January 6, 2026.
Rather than proceed with that hearing, the district attorney’s office asked the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal court, to intervene. The office argues the appeals court overstepped its authority and that Armstrong failed to meet the legal burden required to justify a hearing, calling the appellate court’s order an invitation for the defense to “fish for facts.”
At the center of the dispute is a misconduct complaint involving forensic expert Celestina Rossi, whose blood-spatter analysis was used by the state to link Armstrong to the crime scene. Armstrong’s attorney contends prosecutors should have disclosed a complaint filed with the Texas Forensic Science Commission accusing Rossi of planting DNA evidence in an unrelated case. That complaint was later dismissed.
Prosecutors say the complaint was publicly available years before Armstrong’s 2023 trial and therefore was not suppressed evidence under Brady disclosure rules. They also argue it was irrelevant and inadmissible.
Armstrong’s attorneys strongly disagree, arguing the issue was never properly reviewed and could not have been discovered through ordinary means.
“It is wrong on the facts as this allegation was not available via easy search, as claimed,” McCann states in filing. “The only way anyone could have found it was to know the complaint number assigned to it beforehand, creating a ‘Catch-22’ that the State ignores for its benefit.”
The defense further argues that the TFSC never reviewed the allegations and that Rossi’s character and credibility were never disclosed to the defense or jury issues they say must now be examined by a trial court fact finder.
“There is no acquittal here,” the filing states. “There was instead an abdication of responsibility, and the task now is to figure out, with a trial court fact finder, what happened, and who knew about it when.”
In a forceful conclusion, Armstrong’s attorneys accuse the state of attempting to avoid transparency after three trials and years of litigation.
“It appears the State wishes to hide behind this Court rather than simply have a public hearing in which its prosecutors might be expected to answer questions truthfully under oath in a public forum,” McCann wrote. “Avoiding transparency or its appearance should not be the Texas definition of due course of law or due process.”
The Court of Criminal Appeals has not said when it will rule. If the court sides with prosecutors, the ordered hearing will be canceled. If it denies the state’s request, the hearing will proceed, allowing new evidence to be developed and sent back to the Fourteenth Court of Appeals for further review.
Nearly a decade after the killings, the Armstrong case remains unresolved with the next decision likely to determine whether the appeals process opens the door to another trial, or brings the case closer to its end.