Case Name: Ex parte SEALS
Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1952-12-03
Citations: 255 S.W.2d 215
Docket Number: No. 26098
Parties: Ex parte SEALS.
Judges: 
Reporter: South Western Reporter Second Series
Volume: 255
Pages: 215–217

Head Matter:
Ex parte SEALS.
No. 26098.
Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.
Dec. 3, 1952.
Rehearing Denied Feb. 11, 1953.
Second Motion for Rehearing Denied March 4, 1953.
Dee, Seals & Womack, E. P. Dee, Houston, for appellant.
Will Sears, City /Rty., Chas. M. Rawson, Asst. City Atty., and Chas. Easterling, Asst. City Atty., Houston, George P. Blackburn, State’s Atty., oí Austin,- for the State. •

Opinion:
MORRISON, Judge.
The relator was convicted in the Corporation Court of the City of Houston under a complaint charging a primary offense of speeding; and, in order to enhance the punishment, a prior conviction of speeding was plead.
Relator appealed this conviction to the County Court at Law, where he was again convicted and a capias pro fine issued. It is from confinement by virtue of such capias that relator applied to the Criminal District Court of Harris County for a writ of habeas corpus. The writ was granted; a hearing was had; the court remanded relator to custody; and he appealed.
The ordinance under which relator was charged provides a maximum penalty.for a first conviction of $200.
Article 61, P.C., reads as follows:
"If it be shown on the trial of a misdemeanor that the defendant has been once before convicted of the same offense, he shall on a second conviction receive double the punishment prescribed for such offense in ordinary cases, and upon a third or any subsequent conviction for the* same offense, the punishment shall be increased so as not to exceed four times the penalty in ordinary cases."
It will thus be seen that the • maximum penalty for the offense charged in. the complaint under which relator was prosecuted, by operation of Article 61, P.C., was $400.
The jurisdiction of a Corporation Court is limited to cases wheré the maximum finé that may be assessed does 'not exceed $200. Article 62, C.C.P.
Since the Corporation Court did not have jurisdiction to try the offense charged, a judgment of conviction thereunder is void, and the relief prayed for should be granted.
The judgment remanding relator is reversed, and the relator is ordered discharged.