Court Opinion

ID: 9766505
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:51:38.296444+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:23.475560
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
GUITTARD, Chief Justice.
On August 30, 1985, we affirmed the trial court’s denial of William Wade Allen’s application for a writ of habeas corpus by which he sought to avoid extradition to Tennessee. Applicant, by motion, now seeks an order allowing him to file a motion for rehearing contending that the amendments to article 44.38 of the Code1 constitute an ex post facto law in violation of Article I, § 16 of the Texas Constitution. We disagree. Accordingly, we deny applicant’s motion and direct the clerk of this court to issue a mandate consistent with our opinion and judgment of August 30, 1985.
On February 6, 1985, the trial court entered an order denying Allen’s application for a writ of habeas corpus and further ordered his extradition to Tennessee. The offense for which extradition was sought was an armed robbery alleged to have occurred in Madison County, Tennessee, in July of 1984. Applicant appealed the trial court’s denial of his application for writ of habeas corpus to this court and filed his brief, and the case was argued and submitted before June 11, 1985, the effective date of the amendment to article 44.38 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which abolished the right to a motion for rehearing in extradition appeals when the order approving extradition has been affirmed.2 *895On August 30 we affirmed the trial court’s order, and on September 15 applicant tendered his motion for rehearing to the clerk of this court for filing. The clerk initially accepted the motion but then struck through the file mark that had been placed on the motion and returned the motion to applicant. Applicant asserts that the refusal to allow him a motion for rehearing is an ex post facto application of article 44.38, as amended, in violation of Article 1, § 16 of the Texas Constitution because he was entitled to the benefit of the rules in effect at the time he commenced his appeal. We disagree. While it is true that article I, § 16 of the Texas Constitution declares that “No ... ex post facto law ... shall be made,” there is no violation of the Texas Constitution in the present case.
Although ordinarily laws changing procedure are not within the prohibition against ex post facto laws, still if a procedural change is retroactive and results in depriving the accused of substantive protection, it is unconstitutional. Ex parte Abahosh, 561 S.W.2d 202, 203 (Tex.Crim.App.1978).
Since the amendments to article 44.-38 do not alter substantive law defining criminal acts or providing for penalties, they are procedural in nature. Ex parte Johnson, 697 S.W.2d 605, 607 (Tex.Crim.App.1985). Further, in the absence of express legislative intent to the contrary, the new law controls litigation from its effective date and applies to both pending and future actions. Id. Because there is no express legislative intent to the contrary, we hold that the amendments to article 44.38 apply from the effective date of the legislation, namely, June 11,1985.
We now determine whether the amendments to article 44.38, if applied to applicant, are retroactive. In most cases, the date or key event used in determining whether a law is retroactive is the date the crime was committed. See Ex parte Abahosh, 561 S.W.2d at 203. If a law takes effect after the commission of a crime yet acts on that crime, it is retroactive. Id.
In Abahosh, however, the date or key event used in determining retroactivity was not the date of the offense but the date the defendant pleaded guilty in reliance on the law then in force. The Court of Criminal Appeals held that an amendment to the Code requiring permission of the trial judge for an appeal from a conviction resulting from a plea bargain could not affect the right to appeal of a defendant who pleaded guilty before the amendment became effective, even though sentence was not imposed and notice of appeal was not given until after the effective date of the amendment.
The Court of Criminal Appeals did not focus on the date of the offense but on the date of another event — the date of entry of the pleas of guilty. The corresponding date in the present case is not the date the appeal commenced, or even the date the offense was argued and submitted, but the date of this court’s decision, which was after the effective date of the amendment abolishing the right to file a motion for rehearing. Here appellant did nothing before the change in the law — as Abahosh did by his pleas of guilty — that could have been affected by the change.
More nearly in point here is Millican v. State, 145 Tex.Cr.R. 195, 167 S.W.2d 188 (Tex.Crim.App.1943). In Millican, after a suspended sentence was imposed, the Code was amended to prohibit an appeal from revocation of a suspended sentence. After the amendment became effective, the suspension was revoked, a prison term was assessed, and the defendant attempted to appeal. The Court of Criminal Appeals held that there was no ex post facto violation because the amendment did not alter any right that the defendant had prior to its adoption. Id. The defendant had no right of appeal while sentence was sus*896pended before the revocation and, by the amendment, had none thereafter. Id.
Accordingly, in this case we decline to look to the time the appeal was commenced, or even the time it was argued and submitted, to determine retroactivity. Instead we look to the date when appellant’s right to a rehearing would have come into existence if the amendments had not taken effect. That date was August 30, 1985— the date this court decided appellant’s case. Until then, appellant’s right to a rehearing was no right at all because the right to a rehearing does not come into existence until the delivery of a decision by the appellate court. Tex.R.Crim.App.P. 208. Therefore, since the decision was not delivered until August 30, 1985, after the amendments’ effective date, and appellant took no action before that date that could be affected by the amendments, we hold that the amendments apply to applicant, are not retroactive, and do not violate the constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws.
Applicant’s application for a writ of mandamus against our clerk, which we treat as a motion for an order allowing him to file a motion for rehearing, is DENIED. The clerk is ordered to issue the mandate consistent with our opinion and judgment of August 30, 1985.

. All references are to the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure unless otherwise indicated.

. SECTION 2. Article 44.38, Code of Criminal Procedure, 1965 as amended, is amended to read as follows:
Article 44.38. Judgment Conclusive, (a) The judgment of the Court of Appeals in appeals under habeas corpus shall be final and conclusive if discretionary review is not granted by the Court of Criminal Appeals. If discretionary review is granted, the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals under habeas corpus shall be final and conclusive. In either case, no further application in the same case can be made for the writ, except in cases specially provided for by law.
(b) Notwithstanding any other provision of this code, where on appeal in a habeas corpus proceeding, the Court of Appeals has
(1) affirmed the judgment of a trial court in an extradition proceeding and has, in effect, approved the extradition of the appellant; or
(2) reversed the judgment of a trial court in a proceeding in which the issue was whether bail should be granted or whether the amount of bail should be reduced and has, in effect, either granted bail or reduced the amount of bail; The Court of Appeals shall enter judgment on the date of and in conformity with its opinion. In such cases, no motion for rehearing shall be *895permitted, and the judgment shall become final at the end of business on the 10th day after entry of judgment, on which date the mandate will issue .... (emphasis added)
Act of June 11, 1985, ch. 440, § 1, 1985 Tex. Sess.Law Serv. 2993 (Vernon).