Court Opinion

ID: 9672203
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:50:46.696308+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:14.903313
License: Public Domain

CADENA, Justice
(dissenting).
I cannot join in an opinion which permits a party, once he has unsuccessfully sought *702release from custody by habeas corpus, to become a mendicant, wandering from court to court and from judge to judge, each time presenting the same story, until, perchance, he may obtain a favorable decision. An order or judgment in a habeas corpus proceeding should bar a subsequent application to the same or another tribunal when the same identical question, with no change in status or new evidence is involved. A decision which permits a litigant to cast time after time into the judicial sea, using the same old bait, until he finds a fish willing to rise to the lure does a disservice to the jurisprudence of this State.
It is true that at early common law the denial of relief to an applicant for the writ of habeas corpus, that “darling of the English Law,” was not a bar to a second application for the writ, and that in England one restrained of his liberty could apply for the writ to every justice of the kingdom having the right to grant such writs, with each successive tribunal determining the merits of the application unfettered by the decision of every other tribunal, even if the grounds urged in each application were exactly the same. Rex v. Gee Dew, (1924) 33 BC 524, 3 DLR 153.
I am not convinced that we are bound by the fact that our Supreme Court, in the cases relied on in the majority opinion, allowed successive applications for relief based on the same evidence. There is nothing in those opinions to indicate that the point urged upon us in this case was brought to the attention of the Supreme Court.
It must be borne in mind that the common law rule permitting a party to present his application for habeas corpus as many times and before as many judges as he may see fit was evolved during a period when there was no appeal from an order denying the writ. But in Texas, the order of the trial judge in this case remanding relator to the custody of the sheriff is appealable as in any other civil case. Harbison v. McMurray, 138 Tex. 192, 158 S.W.2d 284 (1942). Where a disappointed relator has the right to appeal, the rule that a denial of an application is not res judicata should not apply. State ex rel. Gaster v. Whitcher, 117 Wis. 668, 94 N.W. 787 (1903); Ex parte Tail, 144 Neb. 820, 14 N.W.2d 840 (1944).
It is true that, in Ex parte Ramzy, 424 S.W.2d 220, 228 (Tex.Sup.1962), Mr. Justice Norvell, in a concurring opinion, recommended the procedure here followed by relator. But, in fact, in Ramzy, the Supreme Court. was acting on a motion for rehearing of its denial of a petition for habeas corpus originally filed in that Court. No other court had heard and rejected an application for the writ. The recommended procedure was not followed by the relator in Ramzy.
Relator in this case has chosen his forum. Disappointed with the decision there, he has sought, and found, a more sympathetic tribunal. Under the majority opinion, had his petition been denied here, he could then apply, relying on the same evidence, to the Supreme Court of this State, and, if refused relief there, would be free to begin a grand tour of the district courts of this State, filing petition after petition. Surely, the opinion of this Court filed today opens the door wide to the abuse of “the prerogative writ regarded as the bulwark of human liberty.”
The prevention of such abuse does not make a “mockery” of the writ of habeas corpus. Remedy by resort to habeas corpus was available to relator and he sought relief in the district court, where he was afforded a speedy hearing. Neither in his petition filed in this Court, nor in his belief in support of such petition, does relator claim that he was denied a fair hearing.
In any event, the record in this case does not establsh, as a matter of law, relator’s inability to perform the condition necessary to purge himself of contempt. The only effort made by relator to obtain the money necessary to discharge his obligation was an appeal to his stepfather for a loan. Such appeal was unsuccessful because the stepfather, who on previous occasions had *703advanced funds to enable relator to purge himself of contempt, had no money readily available. Relator admitted that he made no other effort to raise the money, or any part of it. One appeal to a relative hardly deserves to be regarded as a bona fide effort to comply with the court’s order. His complaint that he could borrow no money from any source, under these conditions, cannot rise above the dignity of a mere prediction of failure. Bluntly stated, relator did not try, because''he thought he would fail.
I would remand relator to the custody of the Sheriff of Bexar County. If, after a bona fide effort to obtain the money, going beyond one appeal to a person who had no money to advance, relator is unable to perform, he may then, armed with such new evidence, again seek the protection of the writ of habeas corpus.