Court Opinion

ID: 9770375
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 15:59:56.525552+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:16.745395
License: Public Domain

MEYERS, J.,
delivered this dissenting opinion
in which WOMACK, J., joined.
In granting this Court the power to issue writs of habeas corpus, the Texas Constitution specifically makes such power subject to regulation under the law:
Subject to such regulations as may be prescribed by law, the Court of Criminal Appeals and the Judges thereof shall have the power to issue the writ of habeas corpus....
Tex. Const, art. V, § 5 (emphasis added). In a separate provision, the Legislature was granted the power to enact laws affecting the speed and effectiveness of the writ of habeas corpus:
The writ of habeas corpus is a writ of right, and shall never be suspended. The Legislature shall enact laws to render the remedy speedy and effectual.
Tex. Const, art. I, § 12 (emphasis added). This constitutional provision led this Court, ten years ago, to decline to impose any kind of time requirement for asserting habeas corpus claims:
Almost six years have passed since the applicant was convicted in this case and he has never complained previously that he was denied an appeal. This Court has consistently and properly held that we have no desire to impose upon defendants the requirement that claims for relief be asserted within a specified period of time, [citations omitted] Such a rule would be arbitrary and probably unconstitutional. Art. I, § 12, Tex. Const.
Ex parte Galvan, 770 S.W.2d 822, 824 (Tex.Crim.App.1989).
While imposition of a rule like that fashioned by the majority today was viewed then as “arbitrary and probably unconstitutional,” the majority now considers such rule to be “a theory which we may, and should, employ in ... any given 11.07 case.” Majority op. at 488. No serious attempt is made to explain why we now view laches as no longer arbitrary or unconstitutional, beyond the suggestion that because the feds have laches, we “may and should” apply it as well. Never mind that *490the feds impose laches pursuant to a federal statute.1
We have a state statute addressing the timeliness of filing petitions for post-conviction writs of habeas corpus in death penalty cases —article 11.071. Tex.Code Crim. Proc. art. 11.071; n.4, supra. Article 11.071 was added to the Code in 1995. Prior to 1995, article 11.07, which set forth procedures for filing post-conviction writs of habeas corpus “in any felony case” (thus making no distinction between death penalty cases and other felonies), contained no time limits for filing. Article 11.071, pertaining only to post-conviction writs of ha-beas corpus in death penalty cases, was added to the Code at the same time changes were made to article 11:07, making it applicable only to post-conviction writs of habeas corpus in non-death penalty felony cases. While the Legislature specifically provided time requisites for filing petitions in death penalty cases under article 11.071, it chose not to impose timeliness requirements for filing petitions in other felony cases under article 11.07. If the Legislature had wanted time requisites to apply in non-death penalty cases, it certainly would have included such requirements in its 1995 overhaul of article 11.07.
Articles 11.071 and 11.07 reflect a continued 2 and constitutionally grounded legislative assumption of responsibility for deciding how original habeas corpus petitions are filed.3 See Davis, 947 S.W.2d at 222-23. We have made it clear that the Legislature is responsible for deciding the procedural mechanics of asserting a habeas corpus claim; this Court is responsible for addressing the substantive issues raised in a properly filed petition:
Article 5, Section 5, of the Texas Constitution, expressly empowers the Legislature to regulate the exercise of this Court’s original habeas corpus jurisdiction .... And, the Legislature clearly has intended for Article 11.071 to provide the exclusive means by which this Court may exercise its original habeas corpus jurisdiction in death penalty cases.
Id. at 223 (emphasis added). So, while the Legislature “does not tell this Court how to decide the substantive claims an applicant raises,” and thus does not interfere with “core judicial functions,” the Legislature has “complete authority to pass any law regulating the means, manner and mode of the assertion” of a habeas claim. Id. While we were addressing, in Davis, article 11.071, nothing in article 11.07 suggests that it differs from 11.071 in this respect. It would be odd, indeed, if article 11.071 “now contains the exclusive procedures for the exercise of this Court’s original habeas corpus jurisdiction in death penalty cases,” id. at 224 (emphasis in original), but article 11.07 did not likewise provide the exclusive procedures for the *491exercise of this Court’s original habeas corpus jurisdiction in non-death penalty felony cases.
Since Davis, the Court has maintained its position that the Legislature has provided the exclusive means for filing original habeas corpus claims. In Smith, supra, we declined to permit a late-filed petition in a death penalty case,4 emphasizing that article 11.071 contains the exclusive procedures for the exercise of the Court’s habeas corpus jurisdiction in death penalty cases. 977 S.W.2d at 611. Responding to a dissenter’s contention that dismissal of the late application was not “fair,” we said:
Our oaths are to uphold the constitutions and laws of this country and state; they are not a commission to do what a majority of us think is fair.
Id. (emphasis added). The same logic, in reverse, would apply to article 11.07. Assuming that article 11.07 contains the exclusive procedures for the exercise of this Court’s habeas corpus jurisdiction in non-death penalty cases, and article 11.07 contains no requirements concerning the time of filing, this Court has no business writing into that provision a time requirement.
In holding laches applicable to 11.07 petitions for post-conviction writs of habeas corpus, the Court is plainly legislating. What “a majority of us think is fair” concerning a delayed filing of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus is irrelevant. We are not elected to legislate.5 See TEX. CONST, art. II § 1 (separation of powers provision); State v. Ross, 953 S.W.2d 748, (Tex.Crim.App.l997)(“[c]ourts have no power to legislate ... courts have no power to create an exception to a statute, nor do they do they have power to add to or take from legislative pains, penalties and remedies ... It is for the Legislature, not the courts, to remedy defects or supply deficiencies in the laws”).
With these comments, I dissent.

. The majority’s assertion that “laches concerns prejudice, not time” is nonsensical. Majority opinion at 488, n. 3. Laches defines prejudice in terms of time. As explained by one legal treatise, "laches embraces not only the element of time, but the added ingredient of prejudicial harm.” 34 Tex. JuR.3d Equity § 46 at 363-64 (1984). This much is evident from the majority’s statement in the same paragraph, that "the State was prejudiced by applicant's fourteen year delay....” Majority opinion at 488, n. 3.

. The Legislature has increasingly exercised regulation of procedural rules governing the filing of a writs of habeas corpus:
[T]he Legislature since about 1967 has "reworked and expanded procedural Tequi-sites” ... So, it has not been uncommon for the Legislature to "enact laws to render the remedy speedy and effectual.”
Ex parte Davis, 947 S.W.2d 216, 225 (Tex.Crim.App.1996)(McCormick, P.J., concurring); see also Ex parte Smith, 977 S.W.2d 610, 611 n. 4 (Tex.Crim.App.l998)(recognizing "[ajlthough Presiding Judge McCormick’s opinion [in Davis ] is labeled a concurring opinion, it was joined by a majority of the Court and may be regarded as an opinion for the Court”).

.Article 11.071 was the provision at issue in Davis, a death penalty case, but we recognized that the successive writ provisions contained in both articles are "virtually the same.” Davis, 947 S.W.2d at 227.

. Article 11.071 requires the application to be filed within 180 days after counsel is appointed or no later than 45 days after the defendant’s brief is filed on direct appeal. Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 11.071 § 4(a). The convicting court may find good cause to file the petition as late as 90 days thereafter, but "an applicant cannot establish good cause for untimely filing of an application filed after the 91st day after the applicable filing date.” Id. at § 4(f).

. There are other problems with adopting laches, particularly in light of article 11.07’s Section 4. Section 4 bars a defendant from filing a "subsequent application for writ of habeas corpus” after there is a "final disposition of an initial application” unless the petitioner pleads facts establishing one of two narrowly drafted exceptions. We have interpreted the "subsequent writ” provision as an effort to limit habeas petitioners to “one bite at the apple.” Given that applicants are limited to "one bite” they are motivated to delay filing claims so that everything they can possibly raise is carefully considered and included the first time. Combine this provision with application of laches, which discourages delay, and petitioners are placed in the awkward position of determining when they have waited long enough to ensure that all claims are included, but not so long as to invoke the application of laches.