Court Opinion

ID: 9646953
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:18:05.762953+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:44.222450
License: Public Domain

*108OPINION ON PETITIONER’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
ODOM, Judge.
The Court on its own motion has withdrawn during term time the mandate issued in this cause, and has withdrawn the original opinion on petitioner’s motion for rehearing and substitutes the following in lieu thereof.
This is an appeal from an order entered in the County Court at Law of El Paso County denying relief on petitioner’s application for habeas corpus.
On September 23, 1977, petitioner was convicted in the Municipal Court of El Paso on nine traffic complaints.1 Total of fines and costs in those cases was $788 with the highest single case being a $200 fine and $2.50 costs. The Municipal Court ordered petitioner committed to the custody of the Chief of Police until the $788 judgment “is fully paid or until he is otherwise legally discharged by the due course of law.” By contract with the city, the sheriff had custody of petitioner and held him in the county jail for 62 days before the hearing in county court on petitioner’s writ was held, at the conclusion of which petitioner was released on bail pending disposition of this appeal. Stipulations at the hearing showed petitioner received $5 per day credit against his fines plus $2.50 per day good time credit, for a total of $465 credit against the $788 judgment.
Petitioner’s contention on original submission was that under Article 5118a, V.A. C.S., he was entitled to discharge from custody when he had earned credit sufficient to discharge the largest single fine levied against him. On original submission the court disposed of the issue this way:
“We conclude that petitioner is not entitled to the relief requested. Judgments in misdemeanor convictions imposing pecuniary fines as punishment have been held not concurrent but cumulative. In Ex parte Hall [158 Tex.Cr.R. 646], 258 S.W.2d 806 (Tex.Cr.App.1953) fines were assessed in seven cases. This Court held that the judgments against the defendant in each of the seven cases were independent of one another, that they could not be discharged concurrently, and that the defendant’s satisfaction of the fine and costs in one of the seven judgments was not a satisfaction of the fine and costs in either or all of the other judgments.”
Petitioner argues this holding is in conflict with this language from Article 5118a, supra:
“This Act shall be applicable regardless of whether the judgment of conviction is a fine or jail sentence or a combination of jail sentence and fine. A prisoner under two (2) or more cumulative sentences shall be allowed commutation as if they were all one sentence.” (Emphasis added.)
Petitioner rests his position on the emphasized language, arguing that treating all $788 worth of fines as one “sentence” renders a punishment in excess of the maximum allowed within the jurisdiction of the Municipal Court. That position misconstrues the statute: Art. 5118a does not transform petitioner’s nine fines into one; it merely provides that for commutation purposes of the statute the fines are to be treated as if they were one. Thus, for fines and cumulated jail terms, good time credits cannot be earned concurrently against each fine or jail term, but to the contrary, treating them as one, good time credits can be earned only against the aggregate punishment. We adhere to the disposition of this issue reached on original submission.
In our opinion on original submission we also went beyond the issue raised by petitioner and held Art. 5118a, supra, does not apply to Municipal Court judgments. We therefore held petitioner could not be awarded $2.50 per day good time credit against his fines. That issue had not been raised and had the effect of reducing petitioner’s credits for his 62 days’ confinement from $465 to $310. Appellant challenges that holding and urges the above quoted language from Art. 5118a as authority for *109the proposition that good time credits should be awarded “regardless of whether the judgment of conviction is a fine or jail sentence or a combination of jail sentence and fine.” We agree that the absence of a formal sentence in Municipal Court prosecutions should not render Art. 5118a inapplicable.
Our holding on original submission was based on a reading of a sentence taken out of context. Article 5118a provides in part:
“In order to encourage county jail discipline, a distinction may be made in the terms of prisoners so as to extend to all such as are orderly, industrious and obedient, comforts and privileges according to their deserts; the reward to be bestowed on prisoners for good conduct shall consist of such relaxation of strict county jail rules, and extension of social privileges as may be consistent with proper discipline. Commutation of time for good conduct, industry and obedience may be granted the inmates of each county jail by the sheriff in charge. A deduction in time not to exceed one third (⅛) of the original sentence may be made from the term or terms of sentences when no charge of misconduct has been sustained against the prisoner. This Act shall be applicable regardless of whether the judgment of conviction is a fine or jail sentence or a combination of jail sentence and fine. . . .”
The opinion on original submission relied heavily upon the use of the word “sentence” in the next to last sentence quoted above, and concluded that because there is no “sentence” in Municipal Court convictions,2 the statute does not apply. The language immediately following the excerpt previously relied on states that the statute applies “regardless of whether the judgment of conviction is a fine or jail sentence or a combination of jail sentence and fine.” The sentence before says it applies to “the inmates of each county jail.” We hold petitioner is entitled to such good time credits as he had earned while an inmate of the county jail, and the absence of a formal sentence may not be used to deny him that credit. On the record before us petitioner has credits of $465 toward discharge of his $788 of fines and costs.
We have found further grounds not raised in the briefs that entitle petitioner to immediate discharge from custody. In the record appears an order of the judge who heard petitioner’s writ application. The order recites that after a hearing petitioner was found to be indigent. It is a matter of constitutional law that a defendant “may not be imprisoned because he is too poor to pay his accumulated traffic fines.” Ex parte Tate, Tex.Cr.App., 471 S.W.2d 404; Tate v. Short, 401 U.S. 395, 91 S.Ct. 668, 28 L.Ed.2d 130.
On remand the County Court at Law from which this appeal was prosecuted shall (1) determine the cause numbers of the Municipal Court cases, (2) set aside the commitment to custody issued by the Municipal Court, and (3) remand petitioner to the Municipal Court for execution of the judgments on the fine and costs remaining due by arrangement in the Municipal Court of a schedule of payments or other means legally authorized. See Articles 42.15, 43.07, 45.-06, 45.50, 45.52(b), V.A.C.C.P. See also Ex parte Sheppard, Tex.Cr.App., 548 S.W.2d 414. Petitioner is entitled to credit for $465.00 against the $788 total assessed in those cases.
Petitioner’s motion for rehearing is granted, the order of the County Court at Law denying relief is set aside, and the cause is remanded to the County Court at Law for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion.
It is so ordered.

. Although nine were stipulated, only seven were set out.

. See Article 42.02, V.A.C.C.P.