Court Opinion

ID: 9778954
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:28:16.330093+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:16.705081
License: Public Domain

McCORMICK, Presiding Judge, concurring.
I agree that our duty is to dismiss applicant’s successive habeas corpus application as mandated by our Legislature in Article 11.071, Section 5, V.A.C.C.P.1 Assuming Article 11.071 would authorize this Court to address the merits of applicant’s successive ha-beas corpus application, our state law as well as federal constitutional precedents would answer the dissenting opinion’s contention that a “death row inmate has a due process right to meaningful consideration of a commutation request in the clemency process.”
Our state law is clear and well-settled. “Clemency powers embodied in the parole system are beyond the reach of interference by the judicial branch,” and any judicial action that interferes with the exercise of that power by the executive branch “is as much of an unconstitutional interference as is an attempted usurpation of that power.” Sanders v. State, 580 S.W.2d 349, 352 (Tex.Cr.App.1979). Clemency decisions are not the business of the courts; they belong solely to the executive branch.
The dissenting opinion’s reliance on Ex parte Patterson about some “entitlement *951doctrine of an inmate’s liberty interest” under Texas’ due course of law constitutional provision is misplaced and does not apply to this case. See Ex parte Patterson, 740 S.W.2d 766, 767-75 (Tex.Cr.App.1987) (holding that State’s failure to notify defendant of intent to seek deadly weapon finding precluded trial court from authorizing jury to answer special issue regarding defendant’s use of deadly weapon). Patterson deals with an inmate’s “liberty interest” in such things as good time credits that affect his eligibility for parole. See Patterson, 740 S.W.2d at 769.
This case deals with whether a lawfully convicted and sentenced death row inmate has any kind of a “liberty interest” in executive clemency. Under our state law, this inmate has no such “liberty interest” as the decision whether to grant clemency is and has been solely within the unfettered discretion of the executive branch. There is no tradition or practice in this state’s history that recognizes any kind of fundamental right to executive clemency. Cf. Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. -, -, 117 S.Ct. 2258, 2267-68, 138 L.Ed.2d 772, 787-88 (1997) (setting guideposts for “responsible decision-making” in “substantive due process eases”). Since there is no underlying “liberty interest” or fundamental right to executive clemency, there are no minimum due course of law procedures due relating to the executive branch’s decision to grant clemency. Cf. Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 225-26, 96 S.Ct. 2582, 2589, 49 L.Ed.2d 451 (1976); Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 556-58, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 2975, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974).2 Therefore, applicant and the dissenting opinion must demonstrate that our state law and the manner in which executive clemency decisions are made in Texas violate federal due process principles.
The foregoing discussion as well as the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Connecticut Board of Pardons v. Dumschat, 452 U.S. 458, 101 S.Ct. 2460, 69 L.Ed.2d 158 (1981), answer the federal due process arguments adversely to the positions taken by applicant and the dissenting opinion. An inmate has “ ‘no constitutional or inherent’ ” right to commutation of her sentence. Dumschat, 452 U.S. at 464, 101 S.Ct. at 2464. And, a state law which, like Texas’, confers “unfettered discretion” in granting executive clemency does not create such a right. See Dumschat, 452 U.S. at 465-67, 101 S.Ct. at 2465 (the intermediate appellate court correctly recognized that Connecticut has conferred “ ‘unfettered discretion’ ” on its Board, but paradoxically then proceeded to fetter the Board with a halter of constitutional “entitlement”). Therefore, no minimum federal due process procedures apply to the manner in which executive clemency decisions are made in Texas. See Dumschat, 452 U.S. at 463-65, 101 S.Ct. at 2464.
With these comments, I concur in dismissing this habeas corpus application.
MANSFIELD, KELLER, PRICE and HOLLAND, JJ., join this concurrence.

. Assuming applicant’s successive habeas corpus application meets one of the exceptions contained in Article 11.071, Section 5, her application nevertheless presents no legal basis upon which to grant habeas corpus relief. Therefore, it would not, as the dissenting opinion claims, be necessary to "remand this matter to the habeas court to conduct a hearing to determine whether the procedures and policies in the clemency process, if any, comport with the requirements of due process and due course of law.”

. The dissenting opinion suggests that our state law providing for executive clemency somehow creates a protected “liberty interest” or "fundamental right” to executive clemency sufficient to trigger procedures essential to the realization of that right. However, this argument fails to appreciate that our state law provides unfettered discretion in the exercise of executive clemency.