Court Opinion

ID: 9653575
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:49:12.168073+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:13:00.068147
License: Public Domain

MORRISON, Judge.
The relator was convicted in the corporation court of the city of Houston under a complaint charging a primary offense of speeding; and, in order to enhance the punishment, a prior conviction of speeding was plead.
Relator appealed this conviction to the county court at law, where he was again convicted and a capias pro fine issued. It is from confinement by virtue of such capias that relator applied to the criminal district court of Harris County for a writ of habeas corpus. The writ was granted; a hearing was had; the court remanded relator to custody; and he appealed.
The ordinance under which relator was charged provides a maximum penalty Tor a first conviction of $200.00.
Article 61, P. C., reads as follows:
“If it be shown on the trial of a misdemeanor that the defendant has been once before convicted of the same offense, he shall on a second conviction receive double the punishment prescribed for such offense in ordinary cases, and upon a third or any subsequent conviction for the same offense, the.-punishment shall be increased so as not to exceed four times the penalty in ordinary cases.” -
It will thus be seen that the maximum.penalty for the offense charged in the complaint under which relator was prosecuted, by operation of Article 61, P. C., was $400.00.
The jurisdiction of a corporation court is limited to cases where the maximum fine that may be assessed does not exceed $200.00. Article 62, C. C. P.
*331Since the corporation court did not have jurisdiction to try the offense charged, a judgment of conviction thereunder is void, and the relief prayed for should be granted.
The judgment remanding relator is reversed, and the relátor is ordered discharged.