Court Opinion

ID: 9858276
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 16:19:30.928695+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:53:45.384509
License: Public Domain

MEYERS, Judge,
concurring.
I write separately in order to confront the issue that the majority opinion fails to address: What do we do about Pacheco v. State, 757 S.W.2d 729 (Tex.Crim.App.1988)? Specifically, can we dismiss Footnote 1 in Pacheco as dicta or is it, instead, a holding with precedential value?
Pacheco presented a situation in which appellant’s designated time to appeal the ruling from the court of appeals expired on December 24. Unfortunately, the courthouse at which he attempted to file his Petition for Discretionary Review (hereinafter, PDR) was closed that day. Appellant therefore filed his PDR on December 27 since both December 25 and 26 were legal holidays on which the courthouse was closed. Writing for this Court, Judge Clinton stated that it was “impossible for appellant to file his PDR” on December 24 because of the courthouse closure. Id. at 730 n. 1. Thus, although the record reflected that December 24 was not a legal holiday, this court nevertheless considered appellant’s PDR as timely filed. Id.
We should not simply ignore Pacheco’s footnote, nor should we dismiss it as dicta. Although not central to the arguments articulated on the merits of the case, Pacheco’s Footnote 1 was essential to reaching those merits. In other words, the result of Pacheco hinged on the proposition presented in Footnote 1 since that resolution validated our jurisdiction to hear the case. The nature of Footnote 1 as a holding, rather than dicta, is further evidenced by the fact that this Court did not merely mention the State’s jurisdictional doubts in passing, but instead addressed its contentions with both an explanation and a conclusion.
*581It seems to me, however, that the prece-dential value of Footnote 1 is limited. This Court treated the State’s jurisdictional argument perfunctorily and gave no indication that the question was extensively briefed or argued by the parties. Additionally, the holding in the footnote remains peripheral to the main thrust of the discussion in Pacheco and subsequent case law has not cited to it for support. Most importantly, however, this Court would be ill-advised to follow the jurisdictional holding in Pacheco in light of present statutory laws. I would therefore overrule Pacheco ⅛ Footnote 1 to the extent that it supports the dissenting opinion.
Specifically, I refer this Court to Tex. R.App.P. 31(a)(1), which states that a motion for a new trial should be filed before or within 30 days after the “... date sentence is imposed or suspended in open court”. I would compute this thirty day period by excluding the day the court imposed the sentence, but including the last day of the thirty day period “unless it is a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday, in which event the period extends to the end of the next day which is not a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday”. Tex.R.App.P. 5(a). Thus, as Judge McCormick correctly notes in his majority opinion, appellant’s thirty day period began on November 24, 1993 and ended on December 24, 1993 — not on December 27,1993 as appellant contends. December 24 was not a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday. Although Judge Baird, in his dissenting opinion, may wish to interpret Tex.R.App. 5(a) consistently with Miller Brewing Co. v. Villarreal, 829 S.W.2d 770 (Tex.1992) by holding that a “legal holiday” constitutes any day on which the clerk’s office is officially closed, his interpretation defies the definition of “legal holiday” set forth in Gov.Code Section 662.021.1 The legislature’s definition of “legal holiday”, as explained in Judge McCormick’s opinion, does not include December 24 and we are not at liberty to ignore it.
Finally, I note that the instant case does not present a situation of unforeseeable circumstance, such as a meteor shower pum-melling the courthouse to the ground, nor do I presume to suggest how the rule would operate had such a circumstance existed. Instead, I direct this Court to Gov.Code Sections 662.003(b) and 662.004. Together, these provisions deem December 24 a state holiday on which a state agency need not employ sufficient staff to conduct public business. Thus, the Government Code notifies practitioners that the courthouse may very well be closed on December 24, despite crucial deadlines. Such provisions may appear unfair in that they forced the lawyer in this case to either file his papers early or, if he needed the full thirty days, to mail them to the courthouse clerk on December 24 in order to have timely filed his motion. See Tex.R.App.P. 4(b). We are not, however, asked to assess the fairness of the rules as applied to the circumstances of this case, but, instead, to interpret those rules and determine how the legislature intended them to operate. Questions of fairness may arise later if the appellant decides to file a writ of habeas corpus claiming, for example, ineffective assistance of counsel. In fact, a bulk of the habeas petitions granted by this Court arise out of such claims and appellant is not foreclosed from filing such a claim with this Court.
Because the only matter presented here for review is the straight-forward interpretation of the statutes and rules, I concur in the judgment of the Court and join its opinion.
WHITE, J., joins.

. Gov.Code § 662.021 states:
A legal holiday includes only the following days:
(1) a national holiday under Section 662.003(a); and
(2) a state holiday under Sections 662.003(b)(1) through (6). (emphasis added)