Court Opinion

ID: 9678084
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:10:12.840808+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:01.529432
License: Public Domain

TEAGUE, Judge,
dissenting.
The issue that is before this Court is whether John Paul (Mickey) Stasey, appellant, is entitled to have the records of the Department of Corrections reflect that his sentence commenced on March 31, 1982, and that he has continuously served his sentence. The question should be answered in the affirmative. I respectfully dissent to the majority’s implicit holding that *712the question should be answered in the negative.
The decision to unlawfully release Sta-sey on probation after he had commenced serving his sentence in the Department of Corrections was made solely by the trial judge in this cause and no other person, including Stasey. The record clearly reflects that Stasey had nothing to do with the trial judge’s decision to order his release, and he did not cause his release; instead, Stasey was released from the Department of Corrections because the trial judge told the authorities to release him, which they did on May 27, 1982. I am quite sure, however, that when the trial judge unlawfully ordered Stasey released to “shock probation”, he was acting in good faith, and by this dissent I do not mean to imply or suggest otherwise. But, it makes no difference what prompted his act: When he acted, he was acting without color of authority, or legal authority of any kind.
I believe that every single judicial act that has occurred in Stasey’s case since May 27, 1982, is void ab initio. Therefore, I agree with the statement the Austin Court of Appeals made in its unpublished opinion, that “Because appellant was never legally on shock probation, he is not in a position to complain of matters in connection with the revocation thereof.” However, I believe that Stasey is most certainly entitled to complain of the failure of the authorities to give him the jail time credit that he is legally due on his sentence.
In rejecting Stasey’s contention, the majority erroneously relies upon Ex parte Moneyhun, 161 Tex.Cr.R. 19, 274 S.W.2d 546 (1955), which in turn erroneously relied upon Ex parte Wyatt, 29 Tex.App. 398, 16 S.W. 301 (Tex.Cr.App.1891). What the majority overlooks, in its reliance upon those decisions, is that this Court in Ex parte Griffin, 258 S.W.2d 324 (Tex.Cr.App.1953), which the majority neither cites nor discusses, rejected the legal theory that if an official unlawfully orders a prisoner released, the prisoner is to be treated as an escaped prisoner, which is the basis for this Court’s holding in Ex parte Wyatt, supra, upon which Ex parte Moneyhun, supra, relies, in which this Court stated in part: “... we think the Wyatt case is here controlling.” But, the Wyatt case cannot be controlling in light of what this Court held in Griffin, supra, that such a prisoner is not an escapee. It is only through that legal theory that a prisoner, such as Stasey, can be held not to be continuously serving his sentence. But, Stasey is no more of an escapee than you or I, and the majority does not even suggest or imply that he might be.
It is true that if a defendant, through no fault of his own, is prematurely and erroneously released from incarceration, he is entitled to flat time credit for the time he was out of custody. Ex parte Morris, 626 S.W.2d 754 (Tex.Cr.App.1982). This rule of law was originated to overcome the harshness of the rule that, notwithstanding that the prisoner was unlawfully released by the authorities, through no fault of his own, he was deemed to be an escapee. Of course, if it was shown that the release resulted or occurred through some fault on the part of the prisoner, then the prisoner was deemed to be an escapee. However, therein lies the distinction.
In Ex parte Griffin, supra, after the defendant had commenced serving his six month misdemeanor sentence, the trial judge in that cause unlawfully ordered the defendant released from the Bowie County Jail and placed on misdemeanor probation. This, he could not lawfully do at that time. Subsequently, the Sheriff of Bowie County arrested the defendant and placed him back in the county jail so that he could serve the remainder of the six months in jail that had been assessed as part of the punishment in the case.
This Court in Ex parte Griffin, supra, relying upon Ex parte Eley, 9 Okla.Cr.R. 76, 130 P. 821, 823, which it “deemed pertinent and in point,” and which it is, held that the defendant Griffin was entitled to be credited for the time that he was at liberty under the probation, notwithstanding the fact that the trial judge was not legally authorized to grant the probation.
*713In pertinent part, the Court implicitly held that Griffin was not to be treated as an escapee; instead, he was to be treated as a “trusty.” It quoted and adopted the following, which the Oklahoma Court had stated in Ex parte Eley, supra:
The petitioner in this case did no more than any other intelligent human being would have done under like circumstances — that is, to go home, when the court who had sentenced him ... told him he could do so — and a rule could not be established, technical or otherwise, holding him to be an escapee and liable to reincarceration, without placing in the hands of county courts, sheriffs, and prosecuting attorneys the power to defeat every judgment of a court of record entered in this state, and permit them to harass and impose upon the unfortunate members of our citizenship, who happen to be convicted and sentenced for a crime, during an endless period, by placing them in jail to-day and releasing them to-morrow, with or without cause, as their caprice might suggest. The petitioner in this case was in the custody of the sheriff and subject to his call at all times until the expiration of the prison sentence, and was in legal effect a ‘trusty.’ Ex parte Eley, supra, at 823.
In this instance, there was no appeal from the original conviction. The judgment and sentence were never lawfully vacated, nor was Stasey ever released from confinement — until the trial judge unlawfully ordered him released from the Department of Corrections to the probation department of Tom Green County.
It is axiomatic that when a judgment and sentence are pronounced, and no appeal is taken, and a commitment issued and the prisoner is delivered to the custody of the Department of Corrections, as occurred in Stasey’s case, there are few legal ways that would have enabled him to be lawfully released before his sentence was satisfied. The method by which Stasey’s release occurred in this instance is not one of those legal ways. Because the trial judge acted unlawfully, his act of ordering Stasey released from confinement was void ab initio. Because Stasey had nothing to do with the trial judge’s decision to unlawfully order him released from the penitentiary, he was not an escapee. He is entitled to have the records of the Department of Corrections reflect that his sentence commenced on March 31, 1982, and that he has continuously served that sentence. Ex parte Griffin, supra. To the majority’s decision, which is not supported by any pertinent legal authority, and which holds to the contrary, I respectfully dissent.