Court Opinion

ID: 9776313
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:30:36.899294+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:37.123261
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
dissenting.
In its haste to reduce the practically unmanageable volume of claims that presently may be brought by way of post-conviction habeas corpus under Article 11.07, V.A.C.C.P., the majority has overruled yet another of its past decisions without adequate justification. Rather than engage in this ad hoc, issue-by-issue guerrilla war against habeas applicants, the Court would do well to map out a general strategy of habeas cognizability. Otherwise innocent cases may be caught in the cross-fire, as I fear may have happened today.
In Ex parte Cervantes, 762 S.W.2d 577 (Tex.Cr.App.1988), this Court overturned a conviction in a unanimous per curiam opinion because the trial court had failed to admonish Cervantes, who pled guilty, that his plea could result in his deportation, as mandated by Article 26.13(a)(4), V.A.C.C.P. It is true that Cervantes faced imminent deportation. But we did not predicate our grant of relief on that fact, or on any other showing of actual harm. Instead, we held that “the *487complete failure to comply -with an admonishment required by the statute requires reversal.” Moreover, we held that giving no admonishment regarding the chance of deportation amounted to a “complete” failure to admonish under the statute, and granted habeas corpus relief on authority of Ex parte McAtee, 599 S.W.2d 335 (Tex.Cr.App.1980). In that case we had described a complete failure to admonish under another provision of Article 26.13(a) as constituting “error of a fundamental nature.”
By our reliance on McAtee in Cervantes, we indicated that our grant of relief was not based upon a showing he was in fact about to be deported. We overturned Cervantes’ conviction simply because the admonishment was not given, such a failure amounting to fundamental error. Likewise, in Morales v. State, 872 S.W.2d 753 (Tex.Cr.App.1994), we upheld a lower court reversal of a conviction for failure to admonish the defendant under Article 26.13(a)(4), though the record in that case was silent as to whether he was in danger of deportation. Citing McAtee, we held that the defendant need not demonstrate harm. Id, at 755.
Under our current regime of cognizability under Article 11.07, V.A.C.C.P., an issue is cognizable in post-conviction application for habeas corpus if it raises “jurisdictional defects ... or denials of fundamental or constitutional rights.” Ex parte Banks, 769 S.W.2d 539, 540 (Tex.Cr.App.1989). The majority acknowledges as much, but denies relief anyway, even though this case is on all fours with Ex parte Cervantes, supra. In fact the majority finds it necessary, in a footnote, to overrule Cervantes, and McAtee to boot. But the majority never explains why the error we unanimously found to be fundamental in Cervantes no longer is.
The majority rejects applicant’s claim on authority of our decision in Ex parte Sadberry, 864 S.W.2d 541 (Tex.Cr.App.1993). In Sadberry the Court denied relief to an applicant who complained only that the statutory requirement of Article 1.13, V.A.C.C.P., that a jury waiver be made in writing, was not satisfied in his case. In effect, the Court thus held that a bare claim of statutory violation is not cognizable in a writ. An applicant must plead further, either that he has been deprived of his constitutional right to a trial by jury, or that he has suffered some other unspecified harm, before he has established entitlement to relief on post-conviction habe-as corpus. In order to reach that result the Court was obliged to overrule Ex parte Felton, 590 S.W.2d 471 (Tex.Cr.App.1979), a case in which we had sustained a habeas applicant’s contention that failure to secure his jury waiver in writing pursuant to Article I.13 rendered his conviction void. The Court never explained in Sadberry, however, why the violation of a statutory provision could never constitute fundamental error, Ex parte Felton notwithstanding. That is the reason I dissented in Sadberry. The Court makes the same mistake today.
I am sympathetic, of course, with the impulse to limit cognizability of claims in post-conviction habeas corpus. To that end I have advocated a scheme which “insist[s] that the State’s legitimate interest in the finality of convictions ought to be the linchpin of cognizability analysis.” Ex parte Sadberry, supra, at 544 (Clinton, J., dissenting). Accordingly I have proposed a view of habe-as cognizability that would eliminate collateral review of many federal constitutional claims, entertaining only those claims sufficiently “exceptional” as to defeat the State’s interest in the finality of convictions. E.g., Ex parte Crispen, 777 S.W.2d 103 (Tex.Cr.App.1989) (Clinton, J., concurring); Ex parte Dutchover, 779 S.W.2d 76 (Tex.Cr.App.1989) (Clinton, J., concurring); Ex parte Goodman, 816 S.W.2d 383 (Tex.Cr.App.1991) (Clinton, J., concurring). But finality remains the touchstone, and in that vein I later observed:
“[i]t is not just constitutional claims ... that may be of sufficient import as to defeat otherwise legitimate finality interests. In Marin v. State, 851 S.W.2d 275 (Tex.Cr.App.1993), we recognized that ‘the system ... includes a number of requirements and prohibitions which are essentially independent of the litigants wishes.’ Id., at 279. Such ‘absolute’ or ‘systemic’ requirements may be creatures of statute alone, but they are nevertheless subject to neither forfeiture nor even express waiver, and at least in some cases they cannot be *488subjected to harmless error review. Id., at 280, 279 & 281-82, respectively.”
Ex parte Sadberry, supra, at 545 (Clinton, J., dissenting). Post-conviction habeas corpus ought to be an available remedy for violation of such systemic requirements, statutory though they may be.
In characterizing the lack of an admonishment under Article 26.13(a)(4) as “fundamental” error, Morales and Ex parte Cervantes constitute pronouncements by this Court that such an admonishment is one of those “requirements ... which are essentially independent of the litigants wishes.” A requirement “so important to the Legislature as thus to transcend the ordinary course of our adversarial system ought to be regarded as subject to vindication by way of post-conviction habeas corpus.” Ex parte Sadberry, supra, at 546 (Clinton, J., dissenting). Before the Court takes the radical step to overrule Cervantes — and effectively to impugn the rationale of Morales too, albeit sub silen-tio — it would do well to explain why the requirement of Article 26.13(a)(4) is not of sufficient import to defeat the State’s otherwise compelling interest in the finality of convictions.
Because the majority does not, I respectfully dissent.