Court Opinion

ID: 9763106
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:36:42.365068+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:39.424210
License: Public Domain

McCORMICK, Judge,
dissenting.
Because the construction of Article 28.061 V.A.C.C.P. proferred by the majority sanctions an unconstitutional infringement on the District Court’s exclusive jurisdiction over felony cases, I dissent.
The Texas Constitution specifically delineates the jurisdiction of trial courts to those criminal cases within their respective purview:
“The District Court shall have original jurisdiction in all criminal cases of the grade of felony.” TEX. CONST. Art. V, Sec. 8; See also Art. 4.05, Y.A.C.C.P.; “The County Court shall have original jurisdiction of all misdemeanors of which exclusive original jurisdiction is not given to the Justice Court as the same is now or may hereafter be prescribed by law, and when the fine to be imposed shall exceed $200....” TEX. CONST. Art. V, Sec. 16; See also Art. 4.07, V.A.C.C.P.;
“Justices of the peace shall have jurisdiction in criminal matters of all cases where the penalty or fine to be imposed by law may not be more than two hundred dollars, ... and such other jurisdiction, criminal and civil, as may be provided by law, under such regulations as may be prescribed by law .... ” TEX. CONST. Art. Y, Sec. 19; See also Art. 4.11, V.A.C.C.P.
As construed by the majority, the dismissal provision of the Texas Speedy Trial Act offends this Constitutional scheme by purporting to authorize the county and justice of the peace courts to deny or defeat jurisdiction granted only the district court. Our Constitution gives the district court exclusive jurisdiction in all criminal cases of the grade of felony. Hughes v. State, 68 Tex.Cr.R. 548, 152 S.W. 912, 913 (Tex.Cr.App.1913). This grant of authority cannot be defeated or trenched on by a lower court lacking such jurisdiction. Where there is no jurisdiction, “the power of the court to act is as absent as if it did not exist.” Ex parte Caldwell, 383 S.W.2d 587, 589 (Tex.Cr.App.1964). See Ex parte Sandoval, 167 Tex.Cr.R. 54, 318 S.W.2d 64 (Tex.Cr.App.1958); Ex parte Armstrong, 110 Tex.Cr.R. 362, 8 S.W.2d 674, 675 (Tex.Cr.App.1928).
To place the District Court’s exclusive jurisdiction over a valid felony indictment at the mercy of lower court dismissal under the Speedy Trial Act inverts the hierarchic system of courts provided for the Texas Constitution, supra, and countenances impermissible interference between them. This violates the very purpose and intent of *602the framers of the Constitution. As the Texas Supreme Court observed in Morrow v. Corbin, 112 Tex. 553, 62 S.W.2d 641, 644 (1933),
“Since the Constitution has erected a system of both trial and appellate courts, it is obvious that it was never the purpose of the Organic Law to permit one tribunal to interfere with the lawful exercise by another of the judicial power allocated to it. It was the purpose of the framers of the Constitution to make each tribunal independent of all others in the exercise of the authority confided to it, except in so far as powers of revision or direction may be given in the Organic Law or valid statutes thereunder to appellate over trial tribunals.”
See also, French v. Hay, 89 U.S. 250, 253, 22 Wall. 250, 253, 22 L.Ed. 857 (1875); Cleveland v. Ward, 116 Tex. 1, 285 S.W. 1063, 1071 (1926).
Accepting the constitutionality of the majority’s construction of Article 28.061, supra, may relegate the District Court to the role of a helpless observer to the loss of its jurisdiction for circumstances it is powerless to affect, but a more real danger is that it may not. It is well settled that,
“A district court is not authorized to exercise general supervision and control over the county court in criminal proceedings, and its power to interfere with the orderly dispatch of such business by the latter tribunal is limited to that conferred by the Constitution and statutes of our State.” Winfrey v. Chandler [159 Tex.220], 318 S.W.2d 59, 61 (Tex.1958).
However, under these “constitutional and statutory provisions1, a district court has no power to stay the trial of a criminal case pending in another court except where necessary and appropriate to protect or enforce its own jurisdiction”. Id. (emphasis added). See Seele v. State, 1 Tex.Civ.App. 495, 20 S.W. 946 (1892, no writ history). A construction of Art. 28.061, supra, that forces the district court to protect its own exclusive felony jurisdiction via a writ to the county court to proceed with a trial or dismiss it within the time period for misdemeanors allowed by the Speedy Trial Act is precisely the type of interference between tribunals decried in Morrow v. Corbin, supra, yet invited by the majority today.
For all of the above reasons, I dissent.
TOM G. DAVIS, W.C. DAVIS and CAMPBELL, JJ., join in this dissent.

. Art. 1914 V.A.C.S. provides that “Judges of the district courts may either in term time or in vacation, grant writs of mandamus, injunction, sequestration, attachment, garnishment, certio-ran and supersedeas, and all other writs necessary to enforcement of the jurisdiction of the court.”