MILTON, CLIFFORD v. the State of Texas

IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS
OF TEXAS
NO. PD-0282-24 & PD-0283-24

CLIFFORD MILTON, Appellant

v.

THE STATE OF TEXAS

ON APPELLANT’S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW
FROM THE FIRST COURT OF APPEALS
HARRIS COUNTY

PARKER, J., delivered the opinion of the Court in which SCHENCK, P.J.,
and RICHARDSON, YEARY, NEWELL, WALKER, and FINLEY, JJ., joined. KEEL and
MCCLURE, JJ., concurred.

OPINION

Can a child under 17 be a victim of trafficking by compelled prostitution if the conduct

involves the child having sex with adults more than three years older than her for pay? Under the

plain language of the statutes, the answer is resoundingly “yes.” Appellant and the court of appeals

focus on whether (and when) 14-to-16-year-olds can consent to have sex, but that is the wrong focus.

The proper focus is on whether the trafficking and compelling-prostitution statutes criminalize the

conduct at issue in this case. They do.
MILTON — 2

I. BACKGROUND

A. Facts

A 15-year-old girl ran away from home. Appellant took her in and prodded her into having

sex with men for pay. He pocketed the money she earned. Based on this conduct, Appellant was

convicted of trafficking a child by compelling the child to engage in prostitution.1

B. Appeal

On appeal, Appellant relied upon the Fourteenth Court of Appeals’s decision in Turley v.

State.2 In Turley, the court of appeals held that, by virtue of age alone, a 4-year-old child could not

commit prostitution for the purpose of determining whether a defendant could be convicted of

compelling that child’s commission of prostitution.3 In so holding, that court relied upon Penal Code

1
Appellant was also convicted of trafficking by committing sexual assault of a child (he
himself having sex with the victim). He did not attack the sufficiency of the evidence to support that
conviction. See Milton v. State, 695 S.W.3d 689, 693 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2024)
(“Appellant Clifford Milton was indicted on two counts of trafficking of a child by prohibited
conduct. In Cause Number 1612515, he was indicted for the offense of trafficking of a child by
causing the complainant to become the victim of sexual assault, and in Cause Number 1612516, he
was indicted for the offense of trafficking of a child by causing the complainant to become the victim
of prostitution. . . . In three issues, Milton argues (1) there was legally insufficient evidence to prove
he committed the offense of trafficking a person in Cause Number 1612516 because he did not cause
the complainant to commit prostitution, (2) the trial court abused its discretion in allowing the
admission of extraneous offense testimony, and (3) the judgments should be modified to reflect (a)
a finding on the enhancement paragraphs of ‘N/A’ instead of ‘pleaded true’ and ‘found true,’ and
(b) to state the sentences are to run concurrently.”) (emphasis added, ellipsis inserted). Nevertheless,
Appellant filed a PDR for both of his cases, and this Court granted both. Our records show that the
trial court cause number 1612515 corresponds to the court-of-appeals cause number 01-22-00335-
CR, which in turn corresponds to our cause number PD-0282-24. Consequently, we dismiss the
PDR in PD-0282-24, from the trafficking-by-committing-sexual-assault case, as improvidently
granted.
2
597 S.W.3d 30 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2020), rev’d on other grounds, 691
S.W.3d 612 (Tex. Crim. App. 2024).
3
Id. at 40-44.
MILTON — 3

§ 8.07 and the Texas Supreme Court’s decision in In re B.W.4 The court of appeals pointed out that

§ 8.07 drew lines at ages 15 and 10, younger than which children would not be criminally

responsible for certain conduct, and it pointed to B.W. as drawing a line at age 14, younger than

which a child could not be adjudicated delinquent for prostitution.5 The court of appeals specifically

relied upon the conclusion in B.W. that children younger than 14 lack the legal capacity to consent

to sex.6

Appellant argued to the court of appeals in this case that the holding in Turley should be

extended to children between the ages of 14 and 17 because minors are generally not legally

permitted to consent to sex. The State argued, among other things, that Turley was incorrectly

decided.

The court of appeals in Appellant’s case declined to address the correctness of Turley.7

Instead, the court of appeals declined to extend Turley to children ages 14 to 17.8 In part, the court

pointed to Texas establishing “a two-step scheme that differentiates between sex with a younger

child and sexual relations with an older teen.”9 The court concluded that there was a legislative

intent “to treat children older than thirteen different for purposes of consent involving sexual

4
Id. at 40 & n.12 (discussing TEX. PENAL CODE § 8.07), 43 (discussing In re B.W., 313
S.W.3d 818 (Tex. 2010)).
5
Id.
6
Id. at 43-44.
7
Milton, 695 S.W.3d at 710.
8
Id. at 710-11.
9
Id. at 710.
MILTON — 4

conduct.”10

C. Post-Appeal and Discretionary Review

After the court of appeals’s decision in the present case, this Court decided Turley on

discretionary review.11 This Court did not address whether the Turley court of appeals was correct

in holding that age alone prevented a child from committing prostitution.12 Instead, this Court held

that the 4-year-old girl in Turley, who was asleep at the time the defendant solicited an undercover

officer to engage in sexual conduct with her, did not commit any acts that would constitute

prostitution.13

In his petition for discretionary review, Appellant asked, “Did the First Court of Appeals err

in holding that a child between the ages of fourteen and seventeen does not, as a matter of law, lack

the ability to consent to sex for purposes of committing prostitution?” Appellant continued to rely

upon the court of appeals’s Turley decision. He suggested that a child could commit prostitution

only when a defense to sexual assault would be available—a child 14 years or older having sex with

a marriage partner or person within 3 years of the child’s age. Even after this Court’s decision was

handed down, Appellant has argued in briefing that children under 17 are generally unable to consent

to sex under Texas law.

If Appellant’s position were accepted, then a prosecution for compelling prostitution of a

child, and trafficking based on compelling prostitution of a child, would be permissible only in

10
Id. at 711.
11
691 S.W.3d at 612 (delivered June 26, 2024); see Milton, supra (delivered April 26, 2024).
12
Turley, 691 S.W.3d at 618.
13
Id.
MILTON — 5

limited circumstances—essentially only if the child in question was 17 years of age, or if the child

was 14 to 16 years of age and had paid sex with an individual within 3 years of the child’s age, or

by some odd chance, with the child’s marital partner. Because the victim in this case was younger

than 17, was more than 3 years younger than any of the men she had sex with, and was not married

to any of the men she had sex with, the victim would not fall within the limited circumstances

envisioned by Appellant.

II. ANALYSIS

Sufficiency-of-the-evidence questions sometimes turn on the meaning of the statute under

which the defendant is prosecuted.14 A court must interpret a statute in accordance with the plain

meaning of its text, unless the text is ambiguous or the plain meaning leads to absurd results that the

Legislature could not have possibly intended.15 Plain meaning is determined by reading the statute

in context, reasonably giving effect to each word, phrase, clause, and sentence, and construing the

text according to applicable rules of grammar and common usage.16 Words that have statutory

definitions should be construed accordingly, and a court can consult standard dictionaries to ascertain

the meaning of undefined terms.17 As will be seen in the following discussion, all the statutes at

issue here are unambiguous, so we must interpret those statutes in accordance with the plain meaning

of their texts.

14
Walker v. State, 594 S.W.3d 330, 336 (Tex. Crim. App. 2020).
15
Cont’l Heritage Ins. Co. v. State, 683 S.W.3d 407, 411 (Tex. Crim. App. 2024); Boykin
v. State, 818 S.W.2d 782, 785 (Tex. Crim. App. 1991).
16
Ex parte Reeder, 691 S.W.3d 628, 632 (Tex. Crim. App. 2024).
17
Id.
MILTON — 6

At the time of Appellant’s conduct, the trafficking statute provided, in relevant part:

A person commits an offense if the person knowingly:

***
(7) traffics a child and by any means causes the child to engage in, or become the
victim of, conduct prohibited by:

***
(H) Section 43.05 (Compelling Prostitution).18

Under the trafficking statute, a “child” means “a person younger than 18 years of age.”19 Thus, the

trafficking statute expressly applies to any victim of the conduct who is under age 18. But, because

subsection (a)(7) of that statute covers a broad array of sexual offenses against children,20 the

possibility remains that one or more of those underlying offenses imposes a further limitation on the

age the child. If there is such a further limitation relevant to the present case, it would have to be

found in the underlying compelling-prostitution statute.

The compelling-prostitution statute in effect at the time of Appellant’s conduct provided, in

relevant part:

A person commits an offense if the person knowingly:

***
(2) causes by any means a child younger than 18 years to commit prostitution,
regardless of whether the actor knows the age of the child at the time of the offense.21

The word “prostitution” in the compelling-prostitution statute means “the offense defined in Section

18
TEX. PENAL CODE § 20A.02(a)(7)(H) (West 2018). All further references to the Penal
Code are to the version in the West 2018 publication unless otherwise noted.
19
Id. § 20A.01(1).
20
See id. at § 20A.02(a)(7)(A)-(K).
21
Id. § 43.05(a)(2).
MILTON — 7

43.02.”22 As with the trafficking statute, the compelling-prostitution statute itself purports to apply

to any victim younger than age 18. Unlike the trafficking statute, however, the compelling-

prostitution statute does not cover a broad array of offenses; it covers only prostitution. So, imposing

a further age limitation on who can commit prostitution would seem inconsistent with the plain

language of the compelling-prostitution statute. If the prostitution statute contains an age limitation

despite the apparent broadness of the compelling-prostitution statute, one would expect that age-

limitation to be clearly apparent in the text.

At the time of Appellant’s conduct, the prostitution statute provided:

A person commits an offense if the person knowingly offers or agrees to receive a fee
from another to engage in sexual conduct.23

Nothing in this statutory language limits the age of the individual who can commit prostitution.

Practically speaking, a child may be so young as to be unable to knowingly offer or agree to receive

a fee to engage in sexual conduct. At the extreme end, one would not expect an infant to be capable

of engaging in prostitution, as it is statutorily defined. But nothing in the prostitution statute draws

a specific age line. And the statute is clear that anyone who engages in the conduct described

“commits” the offense of prostitution.

Moreover, the prostitution statute contains a defense that suggests that a child can “commit”

prostitution without being criminally responsible for that offense:

It is a defense to prosecution for an offense under Subsection (a) that the actor
engaged in conduct that constitutes the offense because the actor was the victim of
conduct that constitutes an offense under Section 20A.02 [trafficking] or 43.05

22
Id. § 43.01(2).
23
Id. § 43.02(a).
MILTON — 8

[compelling prostitution].24

So the Legislature set up a statutory scheme that (1) allows a child to “commit” prostitution for

purposes of being a victim of the compelling-prostitution and trafficking offenses, and (2) insulates

the child victim of compelling-prostitution or trafficking from criminal liability for the prostitution

offense the child commits.

The only other relevant statute is Penal Code § 8.07, which addresses the effect of young age

on criminal responsibility. That statute is littered with references to a child having “committed” an

offense for which, because of age, the child cannot be prosecuted or convicted.25 Under § 8.07, a

24
Id. § 43.02(d) (bracketed material added).
25
See id. § 8.07 (emphasis added):

(a) A person may not be prosecuted for or convicted of any offense that the person
committed when younger than 15 years of age except:

***
(b) Unless the juvenile court waives jurisdiction under Section 54.02, Family Code,
and certifies the individual for criminal prosecution or the juvenile court has
previously waived jurisdiction under that section and certified the individual for
criminal prosecution, a person may not be prosecuted for or convicted of any offense
committed before reaching 17 years of age except an offense described by
Subsections (a)(1)--(5).

(c) No person may, in any case, be punished by death for an offense committed while
the person was younger than 18 years.

(d) Notwithstanding Subsection (a), a person may not be prosecuted for or convicted
of an offense described by Subsection (a)(4) or (5) that the person committed when
younger than 10 years of age.

(e) A person who is at least 10 years of age but younger than 15 years of age is
presumed incapable of committing an offense described by Subsection (a)(4) or (5),
other than an offense under a juvenile curfew ordinance or order. This presumption
may be refuted if the prosecution proves to the court by a preponderance of the
evidence that the actor had sufficient capacity to understand that the conduct engaged
MILTON — 9

child might not be criminally responsible for an offense by virtue of age, but that does not preclude

the offense being “committed” for the purpose of a different Penal Code provision.

In the present case, we are not discussing whether a child can be prosecuted for or convicted

of an offense. We are discussing whether an adult who causes a child to commit an offense can be

prosecuted and convicted. All of the relevant statutes indicate that a child can “commit” an offense

for the purpose of prosecuting and convicting an adult who causes the child to commit it. And none

of the relevant statutes draw an age line for the child that prevents such an adult from being so

prosecuted and convicted.

Appellant relies on the sexual-assault statute to derive an age-of-consent of 17 and also a

limited consent range of ages 14 to 16. For purposes of the offense of sexual assault, “child” means

“a person younger than 17 years of age.”26 And if the child is 14 years of age or older, the actor

might have a defense if he is “not more than three years older” than the child or if he is married to

the child.27

But the statutes defining the offense of trafficking by compelling prostitution do not

incorporate these provisions from the sexual-assault statute. In fact, none of the statutory provisions

relating to the offense at issue before us reference “consent” at all.28 And after all, the compelling-

prostitution statute, by its very name, suggests that sex is being compelled, and is thus not

in was wrong at the time the conduct was engaged in. The prosecution is not required
to prove that the actor at the time of engaging in the conduct knew that the act was
a criminal offense or knew the legal consequences of the offense.
26
Id. § 22.011(c)(1)
27
See id. § 22.011(e)(1), (2).
28
Contrast id. § 22.011(b) (outlining when a “sexual assault” is “without consent”).
MILTON — 10

“consensual.” Moreover, none of the statutes defining the offense before us calibrate the State’s

ability to prosecute to the age of the person trafficked or compelled to engage in prostitution in the

way that the sexual-assault statute does. The trafficking and compelling prostitution statutes apply

to a defendant who victimizes a child under 18 without any defenses or extra punishment based on

a child’s youth as a bar to consent to sexual conduct.

Further, the sexual-assault statute itself does not purport to use age to preclude a child from

committing an offense; it simply provides that certain sexual conduct by an actor toward a child is

an offense without requiring the State to show that the child did not consent.29 That statute, itself

designed to protect children, provides no basis whatsoever for a holding that would make more

difficult the prosecution of people who traffic and compel children into engaging in prostitution.

In summary, the trafficking and compelling-prostitution statutes expressly provide that

anyone under age 18 can be a victim of compelling prostitution. The prostitution statute does

nothing to limit that coverage and, in fact, feeds the scheme by providing a defense if the child

committed prostitution as a victim of a trafficking or compelling-prostitution offense.

The Texas Supreme Court’s B.W. decision does not persuasively show to the contrary. That

case addressed whether a child under age 14 could be subject to juvenile-delinquency proceedings

for the offense of prostitution.30 Whether a child can be adjudicated delinquent for prostitution is

29
See id. § 22.011(a)(2) (“(A) causes the penetration of the anus or sexual organ of a child
by any means; (B) causes the penetration of the mouth of a child by the sexual organ of the actor;
(C) causes the sexual organ of a child to contact or penetrate the mouth, anus, or sexual organ of
another person, including the actor; (D) causes the anus of a child to contact the mouth, anus, or
sexual organ of another person, including the actor; (E) causes the mouth of a child to contact the
anus or sexual organ of another person, including the actor.”). Compare to id. § 22.011(a)(1)(A)-(C)
(requiring a show that the conduct against the victim occurred “without that person’s consent.”).
30
B.W., 313 S.W.3d at 819.
MILTON — 11

not the same as whether a child can “commit” prostitution for the purposes of another statute

designed to punish an adult for causing that commission. In fact, the Texas Supreme Court explicitly

rejected the notion that its decision would hamper a prosecution for compelling prostitution.31 To

the extent B.W. might contain language supporting the notion that a child under age 14 cannot

“commit” prostitution, that language would be dicta, would not be binding on us even if it were a

holding,32 and should not be followed to the extent it conflicts with the plain meaning of the statutes

at issue before us.

The court-of-appeals decision in Turley was simply wrong to hold that children under age

14 were legally disabled from committing prostitution for the purpose of being a victim of a

trafficking or compelling-prostitution offense. That decision conflated committing an offense with

being criminally responsible for it. And it turned common-sense judicial observations about crimes

against children on their head by crafting a judicial rule that overrode the unambiguous language of

some statutes to actually make them less protective of children. Given the flaws in that decision, we

now disavow it. In this case, the court of appeals found a way to write around its sister court’s

Turley decision but, in doing so, perpetuated to some degree that decision’s flawed assumptions.

Appellant used the flawed opinion in Turley to frame his point of error to the court of appeals

as whether children of a certain age can “consent” to sex. The court of appeals accepted this framing

of the issue, and Appellant has continued that framing in his ground for review to this Court. While

31
Id. at 825 (“Similarly, pimps and other sexual exploiters of children may still be
prosecuted for compelling prostitution and other crimes of sexual exploitation even though the child
herself may not be prosecuted for prostitution.”).
32
In re Meza, 611 S.W.3d 383, 393 (Tex. Crim. App. 2020) (“But Texas Supreme Court
decisions are generally not binding precedent in criminal cases.”).
MILTON — 12

it might seem to some to be an exercise in judicial restraint to respond to the issue as framed,

allowing Appellant to blow us off course in that manner is in fact the opposite of restraint because

such an approach would stray from construing the statute based on its language. As we stated in

Boykin, “the Legislature is constitutionally entitled to expect that the Judiciary will faithfully follow

the specific text that was adopted.”33 And we should not allow a flawed framing of an issue by the

parties or the court of appeals to divert us from the statutory language because “our judgments are

precedents.”34 Nor should this Court twist itself into knots to account for cases that are not based

on the text of the applicable statutes, are not binding on this Court, and are ultimately factually

distinguishable. As it is, our analysis answers the question before us, if in a way Appellant did not

expect: Any child under age 18 that is able to satisfy the elements of the prostitution statute can

commit prostitution for the purpose of being a victim of the offenses of trafficking and compelling

prostitution.

Because the statutes at issue before us are unambiguous, and the plain meaning of the

statutory language allows for the prosecution in Appellant’s case, we agree with the court of appeals

that the evidence was sufficient to support Appellant’s conviction. We affirm the court of appeals’s

judgment.

Delivered: July 2, 2025

Publish

33
818 S.W.2d at 785.
34
See Young v. United States, 315 U.S. 257, 259 (1942) (“Furthermore, our judgments are
precedents, and the proper administration of the criminal law cannot be left merely to the stipulation
of parties.”); Estrada v. State, 313 S.W.3d 274, 286 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010) (“This Court must still
independently examine the error confessed because ‘our judgments are precedents, and the proper
administration of the criminal law cannot be left merely to the stipulation of parties.’”).