Court Opinion

ID: 9680952
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:41:37.967511+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:31.551075
License: Public Domain

MANSFIELD, Judge,
dissenting.
It is clear to me that the court of appeals correctly held that the. trial court lacked authority to dismiss the indictment with prejudice. Indeed, in my opinion, there are no grounds present to justify the dismissal of the indictment with or without prejudice. I respectfully dissent to the opinion of the majority which reverses the judgment of the court of appeals and remands this cause to that court.
At the hearing on appellee’s pretrial motion to dismiss the indictment, evidence was introduced that the El Paso County District Attorney’s Office and the Texas Department of Human Services (DHS) had a long-standing agreement under which the district attorney’s office would prosecute welfare fraud cases referred to it by DHS. The district attorney’s office would be paid $433 by the federal government as partial compensation for expenses for each case resulting in a conviction, deferred adjudication or acquittal. No compensation would be paid for dismissed cases. Final discretion as to whether to prosecute any welfare case referred by DHS to the district attorney’s office rested with that office. The present case is covered by this agreement.1
Texas Government Code § 41.004 (1988) provides:

Acceptance of Reward

A district or county attorney, either before or after the case is tried and finally deter*43mined, may not take from any person a fee, article of value, compensation, reward or gift, or a promise of any of these, to prosecute a case that he is required by law to prosecute or as consideration or a testimonial for his services in a case that he is required by law to prosecute.
The question of law that must be addressed is whether the legislature, in enacting Texas Government Code § 41.004, intended to forbid payment by a government agency to a district attorney’s office, to defray prosecutorial costs, as being a prohibited reward. I conclude that it did not and that it is appropriate, for reasons of judicial economy, for this Court to answer this question. Indeed, there are several sections of the Government Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure that allow a district attorney’s office to collect fees, retain proceeds from forfeitures and to receive other funds, provided, this income and fee is used to defray the expenses of the office. See, e.g., Tex. Gov’t.Code § 41.005; Tex. Gov’t.Code § 46.006(b) (1997); Tex.Code Crim. Proc., Art. 102.007 (1997); Tex.Code Crim. Proc., Art. 59.06(c) (1997). These statutes, as well as Texas Government Code § 41.004, provide that no funds received thereunder may be used to supplement the salary of the district attorney. The intent of the legislature underlying these statutes is clear: the district attorney may receive funds from various sources to pay for the expenses of his office but the district attorney, himself, may not derive any personal benefits from these funds in the form of increased salary or financial bonus. To permit him to do so, the legislature has concluded apparently, would create a potential conflict of interest in that he would have a personal financial incentive to prosecute certain cases and not others. Furthermore, giving the district attorney a personal financial interest in prosecuting certain cases may well violate the right of defendants in such cases to procedural due process under the United States and Texas Constitutions. See Marshall v. Jerrico, Inc., 446 U.S. 238, 249-51, 100 S.Ct. 1610, 1617 (1980); Young v. U.S. ex rel Vuitton et Fils S.A., 481 U.S. 787, 107 S.Ct. 2124, 2134-38, 95 L.Ed.2d 740 (1987); Reese v. State, 877 S.W.2d 328 (Tex.Crim.App.1994).
Because the funds received by the district attorney’s office in the present case did not inure to the personal financial benefit of the district attorney, appellee’s due process rights under the Texas and United States Constitutions were not implicated. Additionally, it would be an absurd result to find that receipt of funds by a district attorney’s office from another government entity is a violation of Texas Government Code § 41.004 when those funds are intended as partial compensation for criminal prosecutions undertaken at the direct or indirect behest of that entity and do not issue to the personal financial benefit of the district attorney. See Boykin v. State, 818 S.W.2d 782 (Tex.Crim.App.1991). Thus, such receipt of funds should not act as a bar to prosecution.
For the above reasons, I would reverse the orders of the trial court and would remand the cause for trial, thereby vacating the judgment of the court of appeals.
I respectfully dissent.

. Appellee was indicted for the offense of tempering with a government record arising out of false entries allegedly made by her in applications for AFDC, food stamps and Medicaid. Tex. Penal Code 37.10.