Court Opinion

ID: 9679675
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:02:14.567543+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:17.981615
License: Public Domain

ESQUIVEL, Justice,
dissenting and concurring.
I agree with the majority that relator has no adequate remedy at law. However, I cannot agree with the majority when it states that the condition placed upon relator to resign his office as mayor of the City of Shavano Park within ten (10) days of the granting of the deferred adjudication is unreasonable. We do not have in the record before us any evidence that the City of Shavano Park is a General-Law Municipality, or any other type of municipality for that matter. Therefore, the majority’s statement that “the trial court, in commanding relator to vacate his office, has acted beyond her authority and has violated the terms of § 21.002” and finding such command to be unreasonable is not based on the evidence before us. TEX.LOC. GOV’T CODE ANN. § 21.002(f)-(h) (Vernon Supp.1988) applies only to a General-Law Municipality.
Even if it had been proven that the City of Shavano Park is a General-Law Municipality governed by the provisions of § 21.002, I still would not consider the court’s resignation command an unreasonable condition. The trial court had before it an accused charged with having committed a criminal offense while acting as an officeholder. The accused entered a plea of “nolo contendere” to the charge, which is tantamount to a plea of guilty and an admission that what he is charged with did in fact occur. TEX.CODE CRIM.PROC. ANN. art. 27.02 (Vernon Supp.1988). How *39can the majority fault the trial court for seeking to remove the relator from the position that got him in trouble in the first place? One of the objects of probation, regardless of whether it is regular probation or deferred adjudication probation, is to assist the probationer in his promise to rehabilitate himself. This, in my opinion, is what the court was attempting to do for relator when, as one of the conditions of probation, it commanded the relator to resign his position as mayor. I consider this condition a reasonable one and respectfully dissent with the majority’s result concerning this condition.
As to the other condition commanding relator not to seek any public office, I agree with the majority that it is unreasonable and concur in the majority’s result concerning this condition.