Court Opinion

ID: 9668090
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 02:02:01.235081+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:42.924085
License: Public Domain

TEAGUE, Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
I believe that the majority orders the wrong person to be punished for what has happened in this cause. To “abuse” Johnny Haywood Emmons, applicant, will be doing a useless act. If anyone should be punished, it is Johnny J.E. Meadows, a person whom I do not know. The record, however, informs me that Meadows is the person who prepared the application for writ of habeas corpus that Emmons signed, swore to,* and filed in this cause. The record also reflects that Meadows, who is in the penitentiary, holds himself out to other inmates as being “a writ writer.”
The record completely demonstrates that Meadows did not know what he was doing when he drafted the application for writ of habeas corpus on behalf of Emmons.
I pause to state that Meadows is not one of those persons I prefer to call “a true writ writer.” The true writ writer is a person who is intelligent enough to recognize his own shortcomings. He assists his fellow inmates for no other reason than concern for their well being. The true writ writer has made valuable contributions to the criminal justice system of this State. Persons like Meadows, however, are not true writ writers. Now is the time for this Court to initiate necessary legal action *111which will result in Meadows’ “law office” being shut down.
Contrary to the majority, I find many reasons why there are so many spurious allegations in the post-conviction application for writ of habeas corpus filed by Em-mons, and why Emmons was not punctilious in the premises. Among those reasons are the following: Emmons is either totally or functionally illiterate, has slight educational attainments, and is limited in intelligence.
The record expressly reflects that at the time of conviction, Emmons was a 36 year old white male who had quit school after he had reached the 8th grade. He is a recidivist. He has been confined in Rusk State Hospital on either 2 or 3 prior occasions for treatment of alcoholism. He has demonstrated suicidal tendencies in the past, as well as having suffered visual and auditory hallucinations. His memory has been impaired for recent and remote events. He has scored 69 on the WAIS Verbal test; 65 on the Performance test; and has a full scale intelligence quotient of 65. Experts in the field of mental retardation inform us that a person who suffers with an intelligence quotient of 70 or less is deemed mentally retarded. See, for example, Macklin and Gaylin, Mental Retardation and Sterilization, A Problem of Competency and Paternalism (1981).
One obvious fact that I find the majority overlooks in its opinion is that there are inmates in the penitentiary who are superi- or in intelligence to other inmates. Unfortunately, some of those persons use their superior intelligence to take advantage of lesser endowed inmates. They act much like the leading character did in the book entitled King Rat, by James Clavell. A few of those persons erroneously refer to themselves as “writ writers.” Unfortunately, those persons do not operate with the same spirit that the “true” writ writers do, preferring instead to operate solely in a selfish manner. They also give erroneous legal advice and information to other inmates. Such persons give “the true writ writer” a bad name. Meadows is not “a true writ writer.” Instead, he is the person responsible for what the majority does to Emmons in this cause.
Since Johnson v. Avery, 393 U.S. 483, 89 S.Ct. 747, 21 L.Ed.2d 718 (1969), prison inmates have had a constitutionally protected right to receive legal advice and services from inmate writ writers; at least where legal assistance from bona fide and professionally trained lawyers is not available. Although professionally trained lawyers are employed by The Department of Corrections to assist inmates with their legal problems, their number is so small that it is humanly impossible for them to take care of the legal needs of the entire prison population, which hovers at the present time at the 40,000 mark. Because there is an insufficient number of professionally trained lawyers to assist inmates with their legal needs, it is oftentimes necessary for inmates to rely on other inmates for legal advice and information. And to a point that is all well and good.
However, when members of the judiciary of this State are made aware of inmates being abused by unscrupulous and irresponsible “writ writers,” such as Meadows, whose only claim to fame appears to be that to other inmates he is articulate in the field of criminal law and procedure, when he really isn’t, then those members have a duty and responsibility to discipline the abusers, or, at a minimum, to initiate procedures that will result in the phony writ writer being put out of business. See In the Matter of the Alleged Contumacious Conduct of Clovis Carl Green, Jr., 586 F.2d 1247 (8th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 922, 99 S.Ct. 1249, 59 L.Ed.2d 475 (1978).
I believe that this Court should immediately invite the Attorney General of Texas to seek injunctive relief against Meadows to prevent Meadows from writing any more writs for other inmates for use in the courts of this State, and from practicing law while incarcerated in the Texas Department of Corrections. Not to initiate such action today against Meadows will allow a cancer in the Texas Department of Corrections to either fester or spread. Surgery is the only cure. I for one believe that the Attorney *112General of Texas is competent to perform that surgery.
To the majority’s action in denying Em-mons any relief, I concur. To its action ordering that Emmons be abused in the premises, I dissent.

 The majority in footnote 1 of its opinion indicates that both Meadows and Emmons could be lawfully convicted of committing aggravated perjury. In light of the record and this Court’s decision of Childress v. State, 398 S.W.2d 754 (Tex.Cr.App.1966), and Bronston v. United States, 409 U.S. 352, 93 S.Ct. 595, 34 L.Ed.2d 568 (1973), I seriously doubt whether any such conviction would stand on appeal.