Court Opinion

ID: 9412392
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-30 08:10:43.131718+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:41:16.044515
License: Public Domain

Affirmed and Opinion filed July 25, 2023.

                                     In The

                    Fourteenth Court of Appeals

                              NO. 14-19-01005-CR

                        EX PARTE LYLA ORDONEZ

          On Appeal from the County Criminal Court at Law No. 10
                           Harris County, Texas
                      Trial Court Cause No. 2290247

                                   OPINION

      In this appeal, which returns to us after a remand from the Court of Criminal
Appeals, we once again consider a facial challenge to Section 42.07(a)(7) of the
Texas Penal Code, which is otherwise known as the electronic harassment statute.

      Upon original submission, we concluded that the electronic harassment statute
was unconstitutionally overbroad in violation of the First Amendment. See Ex parte
Ordonez, No. 14-19-01005-CR, 2021 WL 245219, at *2 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th
Dist.] Jan. 26, 2021) (mem. op.), vacated, No. PD-0145-21, 2022 WL 16626255
(Tex. Crim. App. Nov. 2, 2022) (per curiam). But after we issued our judgment, the
Court of Criminal Appeals decided Ex parte Barton, 662 S.W.3d 876 (Tex. Crim.
App. 2022) and Ex parte Sanders, 663 S.W.3d 197 (Tex. Crim. App. 2022), and in
both of those related cases, the Court of Criminal Appeals determined that earlier
versions of the electronic harassment statute were not facially unconstitutional in
violation of the First Amendment.

      The State timely challenged our judgment with a petition for discretionary
review, which the Court of Criminal Appeals granted. That court also vacated our
judgment and remanded the case back to us for reconsideration in light of Barton
and Sanders. Now, upon such reconsideration, we conclude that the challenged
version of the electronic harassment statute is not unconstitutional on its face.

                                  BACKGROUND

      The charging instrument in this case alleged that on a certain date and location
appellant “did then and there unlawfully, with intent to harass, annoy, alarm, abuse,
torment, and embarrass another, namely, [the complainant], send repeated electronic
communications, to-wit: text messages in a manner reasonably likely to harass,
annoy, alarm, abuse, torment, and embarrass.”

      After being so charged, appellant sought a pretrial writ of habeas corpus,
arguing that the electronic harassment statute was unconstitutional on its face. The
trial court denied habeas relief, and this appeal followed.

                                     ANALYSIS

      Appellant challenges the electronic harassment statute on multiple grounds.
For instance, she argues that the statute infringes on her constitutional right to free
speech, and that the infringement fails to satisfy strict scrutiny. She also argues that
the statute is both overbroad and vague.

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      For all of these legal challenges, the analytical starting point is to determine
whether the statute implicates the First Amendment. Appellant argues that the statute
must implicate the First Amendment because it plainly proscribes speech. The State
counters that the statute does not implicate the First Amendment, citing Barton and
Sanders. For the reasons that follow, we agree with the State.

      Barton concerned a facial challenge to the 2001 version of the electronic
harassment statute. That version provided that “a person commits an offense if, with
intent to harass, annoy, alarm, abuse, torment, or embarrass another, he . . . sends
repeated electronic communications in a manner reasonably likely to harass, annoy,
alarm, abuse, torment, embarrass, or offend another.” See Act effective Sept. 1,
2001, 77th Leg., R.S., ch. 1222, § 1, 2001 Tex. Gen. Laws 2795, 2795. That version
further defined the term “electronic communication” as meaning “a transfer of signs,
signals, writing, images, sounds, data, or intelligence of any nature transmitted in
whole or in part by a wire, radio, electromagnetic, photoelectronic, or photo-optical
system,” and including “a communication initiated by electronic mail, instant
message, network call, or facsimile machine; and a communication made to a
pager.” Id.

      The Court of Criminal Appeals determined that this version did not implicate
the First Amendment because it regulated conduct that was essentially
noncommunicative. See Barton, 662 S.W.3d at 884. Drawing on its earlier decision
in Scott v. State, 322 S.W.3d 662 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010), which dealt with the
related telephone harassment statute, the court explained that, even if a person
electronically engaged in harassing conduct that included spoken words, the conduct
would not be protected by the First Amendment because the person “will not have
an intent to engage in the legitimate communication of ideas, opinions, or

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information.” See Barton, 662 S.W.3d at 881. Instead, the court continued, the
person “will have only the intent to inflict emotional distress for its own sake.” Id.

      The court then made a series of holdings, all stemming from its threshold
decision that the First Amendment was not implicated. First, the court held that a
constitutional challenge to the statute was reviewable under the rational basis test,
rather than the test for strict scrutiny. Id. at 884 (“Section 42.07(a)(7) does not
implicate the First Amendment’s freedom of speech protections. Accordingly, we
use the familiar rational basis test to determine whether the statute is facially
unconstitutional.”). Next, the court held that an overbreadth challenge must fail
because the overbreadth doctrine did not apply. Id. at 885 (“Since § 42.07(a)(7) does
not regulate speech, and therefore does not implicate the free-speech guarantee of
the First Amendment, the statute is not susceptible to an overbreadth challenge.”).
And finally, the court held that a vagueness challenge must be based on the
challenger’s own conduct, rather than the conduct of others. Id. (“As for whether the
statute is unconstitutionally vague, because § 42.07(a)(7) does not regulate speech
and therefore does not implicate the free-speech guarantee of the First Amendment,
Appellant, in making his vagueness challenge to that statutory subsection, was
required to show that it was unduly vague as applied to his own conduct.”). The
court ultimately upheld the statute against all of these challenges. Id.

      Sanders considered the 2013 version of the electronic harassment statute. That
version was largely the same as the 2001 version that had been considered in Barton,
except that the pronoun “he” from that earlier version was replaced with the gender-
neutral antecedent “the person.” See Act effective Sept. 1, 2013, 83d Leg., R.S., ch.
1278, § 1, 2013 Tex. Gen. Laws 3231, 3231. The statutory definition of “electronic
communication” remained unchanged.

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      Consistent with Barton, the Court of Criminal Appeals held in Sanders that
the 2013 version of the electronic harassment statute did not implicate the First
Amendment. See Sanders, 663 S.W.3d at 216 (“In sum, we hold that on its face,
§ 42.07(a)(7), the electronic harassment statute, proscribes non-speech conduct that
does not implicate the protections of the First Amendment, although elements of
speech may be employed to commit the offense.”). The court explained that “the
gravamen of the § 42.07(a)(7) offense is the sending of repeated electronic
communications in a manner reasonably likely to harass, annoy, alarm, abuse,
torment, embarrass, or offend another.” Id. at 215. This proscribed conduct is
noncommunicative, and the court emphasized that such “non-speech conduct does
not suddenly become subject to First Amendment scrutiny because the actor
accompanies his non-speech conduct with speech.” Id. As examples, the court
explained that a person could violate the statute “by sending several e-mails
containing only the letter ‘B’ (arguably a ‘writing’)” or “by sending computer code
(‘signals’ or ‘data’) that would be a readable sequence of machine language
understood by a computer but entirely indecipherable and meaningless to humans.”
Id. at 216. While these communications might contain some expressive conduct, the
court held that any such speech was entirely “separate” from the repeated sending of
those communications, which is conduct that the statute could constitutionally
proscribe. Id.

      After the 2013 version, the electronic harassment statute was amended next in
2017, and that it is the version that appellant challenges here. And for purposes of
this case, the most significant change in the 2017 amendment was to the statutory
definition of “electronic communication,” which was expanded to include “a
communication initiated through the use of [by] electronic mail, instant message,
network call, a cellular or other type of telephone, a computer, a camera, text

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message, a social media platform or application, an Internet website, any other
Internet-based communication tool, or facsimile machine; and a communication
made to a pager.” See Act effective Sept. 1, 2017, 85th Leg., R.S., ch. 522, § 13,
2017 Tex. Gen. Laws 1400, 1407.

      This expanded definition may have broadened the types of electronic
communications that can be used to complete the offense, but the gravamen of the
offense itself did not change. As with the 2001 version in Barton and the 2013
version in Sanders, the gravamen is still the repeated sending of electronic
communications in a manner reasonably likely to harass, annoy, alarm, abuse,
torment, embarrass, or offend another. That “repeated sending of electronic
communications” is noncommunicative conduct, even when such conduct is
accompanied by speech—just as the Sanders court explained with its examples
involving e-mails and computer code. See Sanders, 663 S.W.3d at 216. Accordingly,
we conclude that the 2017 version of the electronic harassment statute does not
implicate the First Amendment. See State v. Grohn, 612 S.W.3d 78, 85 (Tex. App.—
Beaumont 2020) (reaching the same conclusion), pet. ref’d, 664 S.W.3d 139 (Tex.
Crim. App. 2022); Ex parte McDonald, 606 S.W.3d 856, 862 (Tex. App.—Austin
2020, pet. ref’d) (same).

      Because the First Amendment is not implicated, appellant’s constitutional
challenge must be reviewed under the rational basis test. See Barton, 662 S.W.3d at
884 (“Section 42.07(a)(7) does not implicate the First Amendment’s freedom of
speech protections. Accordingly, we use the familiar rational basis test to determine
whether the statute is facially unconstitutional.”). Under that test, the statute is
presumed to be valid, and we must uphold the statute if it is rationally related to a
legitimate state interest. Id. In Barton, the Court of Criminal Appeals determined
that the state has a legitimate interest in protecting the substantial privacy interests

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of individuals from the harassment of others, and that the 2001 version of the
electronic harassment statute served that interest. Id. at 885 (“Sending repeated
electronic communications in a manner reasonably likely to harass, annoy, alarm,
abuse, torment, embarrass, or offender would indeed invade the substantial privacy
interests of another in an essentially intolerable manner. Undoubtedly, if the idea is
to protect people from having their privacy invaded in such a way, one of the best
ways to do that is to punish those who violate that privacy interest and deter those
who would. The means chosen by the Legislature further the interest.”). The same
reasoning applies here to the 2017 version of the electronic harassment.

      Also, just as in Barton, because the First Amendment is not implicated,
appellant cannot maintain an overbreadth challenge to the electronic harassment
statute. Id. (“Since § 42.07(a)(7) does not regulate speech, and therefore does not
implicate the free-speech guarantee of the First Amendment, the statute is not
susceptible to an overbreadth challenge.”).

      As for appellant’s vagueness challenge, because the First Amendment is not
implicated, appellant was required to show that the 2017 version of the electronic
harassment statute was unduly vague as applied to her own conduct. Id. (“As for
whether the statute is unconstitutionally vague, because § 42.07(a)(7) does not
regulate speech and therefore does not implicate the free-speech guarantee of the
First Amendment, Appellant, in making his vagueness challenge to that statutory
subsection, was required to show that it was unduly vague as applied to his own
conduct.”). But because appellant has not presented any argument regarding her own
conduct, her vagueness challenge must also fail. Id.

      In her first of two supplemental briefs, appellant suggests that the 2017
version of the electronic harassment statute is unconstitutional because it targets
multiple means of electronic communications—like posts on social media—which

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plainly involve speech. But appellant was only charged with sending multiple text
messages to the complainant. No other means of electronic communications were
alleged in her charging instrument. We have no jurisdiction to consider the
constitutionality of uncharged provisions of a statute. See State v. Stubbs, 502
S.W.3d 218, 223 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2016, pet. ref’d) (“Because
Stubbs was indicted only under subsection (a) of section 33.07, the trial court did
not have jurisdiction to declare the entire statute unconstitutional.”).

      In her second supplemental brief, appellant argues that “repeated
communications that are intended to cause and that cause serious emotional distress
are still speech,” citing the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Counterman v.
Colorado, No. 22-138, — S. Ct. —, 2023 WL 4187751 (2023). We disagree with
appellant’s reading of Counterman. That case examined whether the First
Amendment required proof of a defendant’s subjective state of mind in a prosecution
involving true threats, and if so, what standard of mens rea was sufficient in such a
prosecution. Id. at *3. Counterman did not specifically examine whether the sending
of repeated electronic communications in a manner reasonably likely to harass,
annoy, alarm, abuse, torment, embarrass, or offend another was noncommunicative,
as the Court of Criminal Appeals held in Barton and Sanders. Accordingly,
Counterman does not change our analysis.

      For all of the foregoing reasons, we conclude that the trial court correctly
denied appellant’s pretrial application for habeas relief.

                                   CONCLUSION

      The trial court’s judgment is affirmed.

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                                      /s/       Tracy Christopher
                                                Chief Justice

Panel consists of Chief Justice Christopher and Justices Jewell and Zimmerer.
Publish — Tex. R. App. P. 47.2(b).

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