Opinion ID: 778656
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Court Policy

Text: 175 The trial court also referred to its prior transfers of about 100 [criminal] cases from Wichita Falls to Dallas (less than half the distance, we note, as Dallas to Amarillo). This historical fact, however, does not support the transfer at issue. Nothing in the record shows why those transfers took place. Such reference to the court's prior venue practice verges on circularity and runs the risk of creating a per se rule that violates Rule 18's focus on the facts of each case. 184 To whatever extent the district court perceived from past transfers a generalized but informal policy regarding transfers as a matter of course, without reference to the permissible considerations under Rule 18 that may have supported those transfers, it committed legal error by including an impermissible consideration in its Rule 18 balancing. 176 As local court policy is irrelevant, and permissible convenience considerations militated strongly against transfer to Amarillo, the issue becomes whether any other legitimate factors, discernible from the record as it stood when the order was made, sufficiently supported transfer to bring this one within the range of discretionary choices to which we must defer on appeal.