Court Opinion

ID: 9778955
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 21:28:16.333414+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:33:16.705858
License: Public Domain

OVERSTREET, Judge,
concurring.
I concur with the Court’s order dismissing applicant’s application for habeas corpus relief. I write separately to comment further.
Applicant’s complaints about the inadequacies of our Texas executive clemency procedures are not unheard of. Not only are they not unheard of, but her complaints are pretty much accurate. I would say that clemency law in Texas is a legal fiction at best. In recent years, we have likewise heard similar complaints, with much clamor, in cases involving Gary Graham and Leonel Torres Herrera. See State ex rel. Holmes v. Third Court of Appeals, 885 S.W.2d 389 (Tex.Cr. App.1994) and Ex parte Herrera, 860 S.W.2d 106 (Tex.Cr.App.1993). However, those clemency procedures remain the same.
It is, and has been, apparent to all that the clemency process has some real problems— *952no standards or definitive factors or criteria to consider, and nothing to ensure uniformity and consistency in consideration. Yet these procedures remain the same.
It is within the Legislature’s prerogative to enact laws to correct some of these problems. Yet it has chosen not to do so. Thus the people of Texas, acting through the elected Legislature, must be satisfied with the current clemency process, or lack thereof. It is not the prerogative of this Court to by judicial fiat alter what in Texas is called the clemency process.
The executive clemency process is a vehicle for mercy. Applicant’s application presents a great deal of information suggesting and arguing that she is entitled to such mercy. However, applicant does not have a constitutional right to mercy. “[A]n inmate has ‘no constitutional or inherent right’ to commutation of his [or her] sentence.” Connecticut Board, of Pardons v. Dumschat, 452 U.S. 458, 464, 101 S.Ct. 2460, 2464, 69 L.Ed.2d 158, 166 (1981).
Accordingly, I concur with the Court’s order dismissing applicant’s current application. If the people of Texas want the clemency process changed, they must let the Legislature know that they demand such change.