Court Opinion

ID: 9682926
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:19:48.121509+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:43.244673
License: Public Domain

ODOM, Judge,
concurring.
The dissent concedes that petitioner’s ha-beas corpus application is not moot and that “[Sufficient collateral consequences flow *389from the discharged1 conviction” to defeat the State’s claim of mootness. Yet the dissent would deny petitioner a forum to raise his viable claim by finding those very collateral consequences that defeat mootness are insufficient to support jurisdiction. This is a distinction without a difference. If the restraints of collateral consequences are sufficient to defeat mootness, they are sufficient to support the exercise of habeas corpus jurisdiction. The Code provides as much and justice and reason permit no less.
Chapter 11 of the Code of Criminal Procedure states the rules governing habeas corpus. Article 11.64 therein addresses the application of the chapter:
“This Chapter applies to all cases of habeas corpus for the enlargement of persons illegally held in custody or in any manner restrained in their personal liberty, for the admission of prisoners to bail, and for the discharge of prisoners before indictment upon a hearing of the testimony. . . .” (Emphasis added.)
Article 11.23, V.A.C.C.P., states the scope of the writ:
“The writ of habeas corpus is intended to be applicable to all such cases of confinement and restraint, where there is no lawful right in the person exercising the power, or where, though the power in fact exists, it is exercised in a manner or degree not sanctioned by law.” (Emphasis added.)
Restraint is defined in Article 11.22, V.A.C. C.P.:
“By ‘restraint’ is meant the kind of control which one person exercises over another, not to confine him within certain limits, but to subject him to the general authority and power of the person claiming such right.’’ (Emphasis added.)
Article 11.04, V.A.C.C.P., tells us how these provisions are to be construed: remedy, and protect the rights of the person seeking relief under it.”
“Every provision relating to the writ of habeas corpus shall be most favorably construed in order to give effect to the
The dissent would restrict the remedy in violation of the mandate of Art. 11.04, supra. In disregard of the broad definition of “restraint” in Art. 11.22, supra, the dissent would hold the collateral consequences of the prior conviction, imposed under the general authority and power of the State of Texas as a direct and enduring restraint on petitioner’s liberty, may not be tested in the courts of this State. The availability of the writ of habeas corpus to challenge any manner of restraint on personal liberty, as confirmed by the terms of Arts. 11.64 and 11.23, supra, would be abolished by the restrictive innovations urged by the dissent.
In Ex parte Snodgrass, 43 Tex.Cr.R. 359, 65 S.W. 1061, the Court considered the last above-quoted provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure and declared:
“We deem it unnecessary to enter into a long discussion of these articles, but suffice it to say that any character or kind of restraint that precludes an absolute and perfect freedom of action on the part of relator authorizes such relator to make application to this court for release from said restraint.” (Emphasis added.)
The dissent, apparently, also finds it “unnecessary to enter into a long discussion of these articles” before restricting the scope of the writ to “a remedy for severe restraints on individual liberty.” Since enactment of these statutes in 1856, the writ has never been limited to cases of “severe restraints on individual liberty,” but has been available to those who are “in any manner restrained in their personal liberty”. Art. 11.64, supra. The dissent would strike these words from the statute as though they were never written, erroneously asserting that the exercise of our jurisdiction in this case “would be an exercise in futility amounting to absolutely nothing.” The dissent urges an unauthorized restriction of habeas corpus jurisdiction that not only *390would abolish protections of longstanding legislative mandate, but would also erode the constitutional mandate of Section 12 of the Texas Bill of Rights (Art. 1, Sec. 12, Texas Constitution), which declares, “The writ of'habeas corpus is a writ of right, and shall never be suspended.”
I concur in the majority’s rejection of the dissent’s unwarranted and insupportable assault on the Great Writ’s protection, today and for the future, of the liberties of all Texans.
PHILLIPS, J., joins in this opinion.

. Although petitioner has discharged the term assessed against him in the conviction under attack, it appears from the record before us that he is nevertheless confined in the Department of Corrections under another conviction. The dissent has not distinguished Ex parte Langston, Tex.Cr.App., 510 S.W.2d 603, and Tex.Cr.App., 511 S.W.2d 936.