Court Opinion

ID: 9673245
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:09:02.33088+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:21.152725
License: Public Domain

ANDERSON, Justice,
concurring.
Nicole Lacafta is a victim. First she was victimized by the thief who stole her driver’s *571license. Now, she is victimized by the inflexible formalities of our state’s expunetion laws.
Anastacia Alva was arrested on May 11, 1995, for public lewdness. Ms. Lacafta was not arrested on that date for that offense. Nevertheless, because Alva was using Lacaf-ta’s name at the time of the arrest, the criminal records of the State of Texas will show Nicole Lacafta’s name permanently linked with Alva’s misdemeanor arrest.
The majority opinion ably demonstrates that expunetion does not lie for individuals who were not arrested, but merely have their name sullied. Because Ms. Lacafta was not arrested, I am compelled, based on the clear language in Article 55.01, to concur with the majority.1 However, in a shrinking world with ever expanding computer data banks, Nicole Lacaffca’s name will be forever stigmatized by the taint of Alva’s conviction. Ms. Lacafta is, in fact, being unfairly punished for a crime she did not commit, but our Legislature has not enacted a remedy to right this wrong. But, as long as the law remains in its current state, expunetion may not be granted for equitable reasons.
In a 1992 concurrence, Judge Benevides eloquently addressed sentiments similar to my own.
I am now obliged to enforce that law just as I would any other. The fact that I disagree with it ... is of little more consequence than the fact of my disagreement with some laws enacted by the legislature or other decisions of this Court with which I[am] not in accord. My clear duty as a citizen and a judicial officer is to obey and enforce those laws as they are, not as I would have them to be.
Vargas v. State, 838 S.W.2d 552, 557 (Tex.Crim.App.1992).
I, too, have a clear duty to enforce the law as it now exists. See Tex.Code CRiM. PROC. Ann. art. 55.01. My sympathies, however, are with Ms. Lacafta. Her good name is now irrevocably besmirched because the State has taken it into its computer systems and, based on Article 55.01, she cannot extract it from those records. She has suffered an irrevocable, and painful, loss.2 As William Shakespeare noted in Othello:
Good name in man and woman, dear my Lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who' steals my purse steals trash; ‘tis something, nothing;
‘Twas mine, ‘tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that fllchs from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.
William Shakespeare, Othello act 3, sc. 8, lines 156-161.

. Article 55.01 was enacted to enable persons who are wrongfully arrested to expunge their arrest records. State v. Knight, 813 S.W.2d 210, 212 (Tex.App.—Houston [14th Dist.] no pet.).

. Other parties to this case have recognized Ms. Lacafta’s tragic dilemma. Ms. Lacafta's petition for expunetion was served on the District Attorney for Harris county, among others. The general counsel for the District Attorney, in a letter to petitioner's attorney, noted that the District Attorney sympathized with any person who has their identity misappropriated by an offender in view of the magnitude of "the problems cause[d] by misidentification of offenders in the criminal justice system_” However, based on the statutory restraints applicable to this case, the general counsel advised the attorney for petitioner that the District Attorney "reluctantly opposes the granting of judicial relief under Chapter 55 of the Code of Criminal Procedure ....” (emphasis added).