Court Opinion

ID: 9664700
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 00:26:02.304662+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:08.672672
License: Public Domain

*212TOM GRAY, Chief Justice,
concurring.
By this Court’s majority opinion we do not answer this pro se appellant’s issue: Whether the use of a complaint to purportedly invoke the jurisdiction of a municipal court is foreclosed under the Texas Constitution which provides only for indictments and informations. The Texas Constitution, however, does not make indictments and informations the exclusive means to invoke a court’s jurisdiction in a criminal case. The Texas Constitution authorizes the creation of other courts and to “prescribe the jurisdiction and organization thereof.” Tex. Const, art. V, § 16. Under this additional provision, the Constitution authorized the creation of other courts and provided the legislature could also set their jurisdiction and how they would be organized within the other courts. Unless otherwise expressly excluded, this would necessarily include an implied authorization for the legislature to specify how that court’s jurisdiction was invoked and how its decisions would be reviewed. So the answer to the issue presented is that article Y, section 12(b) of the Texas Constitution does not foreclose the legislature from utilizing other means to invoke statutorily-created court’s criminal jurisdiction, and the manner in which those courts are organized for the review of their decisions. The legislature has done so as more fully described in the Court’s opinion.