Court Opinion

ID: 9646451
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:00:19.101107+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:38.402694
License: Public Domain

CLINTON,
Judge concurring.
January 26, 1983, we granted appellant’s petition for discretionary review, prepared and filed by an attorney; given the nature of the proceeding, we also indicated disposition of the cause was to be expedited. In that spirit the cause was promptly submitted and a proposed opinion circulated two weeks thereafter, granting a measure of relief to applicant: a hearing in the trial court for the purpose of fixing bail pending appeal of the order remanding him to custody in the underlying extradition matter.
Notwithstanding that the Court of Appeals characterized the cause before it as “an appeal from the trial court’s denial of bail pending the disposition of the appeal,” considered the merits of the sole issue presented — deciding it erroneously — and then affirmed the “order of the trial court denying bail,” the Court now reverses the judgment below and dismisses the appeal on account of an inadequate record in this Court, and mootness.
*232The statutes governing such matters expressly relax the more rigid formalities of an ordinary appeal after conviction. Article 44.36, V.A.C.C.P., directs that “such appeal shall be heard and determined upon the law and the facts arising from the record” and instructs that “the only design of the appeal or discretionary review is to do substantial justice” to the applicant. Article 44.37, V.A.C.C.P., mandates that the appellate court, including this Court, “shall enter such judgment, and make such orders as the law and the nature of the case may require,” and then, intending that pertinent issues thus promptly resolved achieve a status of finality — “the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals shall be final and conclusive” — Article 44.38, V.A.C.C.P., provides that “no further application in the same case can be made for the writ, except in cases specially provided for by law.”
An overwhelming majority of this Court believed from the outset that the opinion and judgment of the Court of Appeals are wrong1 and that applicant was entitled to a hearing on his petition for reasonable bail pending appeal.2 But while we debated, this applicant continued to languish in the Bexar County Jail until ultimately the Court of Appeals affirmed the habeas court’s order in the primary extradition proceeding. The Great Writ promises that kind of injustice need not be suffered by any citizen. We have here breached the promise and allowed the matter to become moot.
Because there is now nothing to decide, I concur in the dismissal.
TEAGUE, MILLER and CAMPBELL, JJ., join.

. Article 44.35, V.A.C.C.P. as construed by this Court in Ex parte Quinn, 549 S.W.2d 198, 200 (Tex.Cr.App.1977).

. Since approval of the recent constitutional amendments modifying the appellate judicial structure and authority in criminal cases followed by enactment of the implementing legislation effective September 1, 1981, this Court has more than seventeen months experience in its decidedly new and different role as a reviewing court of last resort in Texas. Yet, we still seem to have some difficulty in coming to grips with intended purposes and assigned functions of the Court, the essence of which, as I see them, is more to examine, analyze and evaluate opinions and rulings of the courts of appeals on the merits of issues resolved by the intermediate court than to explore the record made in the trial court for procedural faults. Indeed, with its many years of writ of error jurisdiction the Supreme Court of Texas has found it acceptable that an application for writ of error contain, inter alia, a “Statement of the Case” by which is meant a “general statement of the nature of the suit” followed by: “The opinion of the Court of Appeals correctly states the nature and result of the suit, except in the following particulars: [If any].” Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 469(c). Our own Texas Criminal Rules of Post Trial and Appellate Procedure were in part taken from that pattern. See, e.g., Rule 304(d)(2) and (3).