The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has cleared the way for a hearing into whether prosecutors withheld evidence from A.J. Armstrong's defense team before the Houston man's 2023 murder conviction, rejecting the state's bid to block the proceeding. Armstrong was found guilty of killing his parents, Dawn and Antonio Armstrong Sr., as they slept in their southwest Houston home in July 2016. The ruling does not hand him a new trial, but it does let his attorneys finally make their case before a judge.
What the Court Actually Decided
According to click2houston.com, the state's highest criminal court rejected the state's attempt to stop a hearing and lifted the stay that had put it on hold. The hearing will focus specifically on Armstrong's claim that prosecutors failed to turn over information involving their witness and blood-spatter expert, Celestina Rossi, ahead of his third trial. As the outlet reported, the ruling does not grant Armstrong a new trial outright, but it does allow his attorneys to argue before a judge about the disclosure issue and whether it could have affected the outcome.
The dispute centers on a complaint filed with the Texas Forensic Science Commission accusing Rossi of planting evidence in a separate, unrelated case. Armstrong's defense contends that complaint should have been disclosed before his 2023 trial. Prosecutors, however, have countered that the complaint and related materials had been publicly available since 2019, arguing per a separate report from the same outlet that nothing was actually suppressed.
A Case That Has Already Been to Trial Three Times
Armstrong was 16 and about to start his junior year of high school when he was arrested hours after his parents were shot, according to Houston Public Media. Dawn Armstrong and Antonio Armstrong Sr. were shot in the head while they slept, and pillows had been placed over their faces, per the seed reporting from ABC13. The case has ground through the court system for years: Armstrong's first two capital-murder trials ended in hung juries before a third jury finally convicted him in 2023, the same year his attorneys filed a motion arguing that the guilty verdict should be voided over a series of alleged legal and evidentiary issues, Houston Public Media reported.
How the Fight Over a Hearing Got Here
This latest ruling caps months of procedural back-and-forth. In November 2025, the Fourteenth Court of Appeals found that the trial judge had erred by denying Armstrong's motion for a new trial without holding a hearing, and it ordered the trial court to conduct a full evidentiary hearing by January 6, 2026, according to a report hosted on arcpublishing.com's KPRC-affiliated feed. The Harris County District Attorney's Office then asked the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to intervene and block that hearing from moving forward, a request the state's highest criminal court has now rejected.
With the stay lifted, Armstrong's attorneys can argue before a judge that the undisclosed complaint against Rossi should have reached the defense before the 2023 trial, and that it could have changed the outcome.
