Court Opinion

ID: 9660611
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:16:51.908396+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:20.915905
License: Public Domain

TEAGUE, Judge,
concurring.
I continue to adhere to what I stated in the dissenting opinion that I filed in Ex parte Renter, 734 S.W.2d 349 (Tex.Cr.App.1987). However, because of stare decisis, I join the majority opinion, which reaches a result that is totally consistent with this Court’s majority opinion of Ex parte Renter.
In Ex parte Renter, this Court’s majority opinion ruled, inter alia, “that an applicant [who seeks] relief under Article 11.07, §§ 2 and 3 [V.A.C.C.P.] must be suffering collateral legal consequences of a final felony conviction while in confinement in order for this Court to grant relief.” 734 S.W.2d at 354, fn. 8.
In Ex parte Renter, because this Court found that the defendant in that cause was not shown to be suffering from a final conviction and also was not shown to then be in confinement, a majority of this Court ruled that he could not seek habeas corpus relief under Art. 11.07 in this Court. The defendant’s application was dismissed without prejudice to file an original application for the writ of habeas corpus in a District Court. We are not privy to what later occurred, if anything.
In this instance, applicant sought and obtained from a District Court permission to belatedly pursue a direct appeal. The Eighth Court of Appeals has ruled that the District Court did not have jurisdiction to grant applicant an out-of-time appeal. Today, this Court is called upon to decide who wins the “turf war” that exists between these courts.
Although I did not expressly predict in the dissenting opinion that I filed in Ex parte Renter what havoc Ex parte Renter might in the future cause, I believe that the opinion is sufficiently clear to show that thereafter the members of the Courts of Appeals had my profoundest sympathy, and that Ex parte Renter would someday turn a segment of our criminal justice system on its head, which is what occurs by today’s majority opinion.
I believe that today’s decision is the fruit of the seed that this Court planted in Ex parte Renter. I also believe that those members of this Court who voted to join that opinion should be having a difficult time swallowing what must taste much like how many of us remember how castor oil tasted.
I believe that Ex parte Renter should have made it obvious to almost anyone that a District Court, rather than a Court of Appeals, or even this Court, see and compare, however, this Court’s decision of State ex rel. Wilson v. Briggs, 171 Tex.Cr.R. 479, 351 S.W.2d 892 (1961), would have the final say on an original habeas corpus matter, even one that concerned what I believe to be a finally convicted individual. Under Ex parte Renter, if the District Court has original habeas corpus jurisdiction, the Court of Appeals must not interfere with that court’s original habeas corpus jurisdiction, and, if it does interfere with the District Court’s original habeas corpus jurisdiction, it will subject itself to this Court issuing a writ of mandamus against it, as occurred in this cause.
*562In this instance, it is undisputed that the trial court acted pursuant to its original habeas corpus jurisdiction. Therefore, under Ex parte Renter, the District Court had the authority to grant applicant an out-of-time-appeal, assuming that applicant was then “restrained” of his liberty. The evidence from the hearing before the District Court supports the finding that applicant was then under “restraint”, and also supports that court’s order granting applicant an out-of-time appeal. Therefore, under Ex parte Renter, the District Court’s action was proper, and the Eighth Court of Appeals had no authority to interfere with what the District Court had ordered, notwithstanding that it had previously ordered applicant’s appeal dismissed and has ruled that the District Court did not have jurisdiction to grant applicant an out-of-time appeal.
Who won the “turf war”? Under Ex parte Renter, the District Court, of course, did.
With these brief remarks, I join the majority opinion.