Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
In re Smith
No. WR-93,354-02 12/7/2022
Issue:
Does a district court in Travis County have authority to review habeas claims made in a case arising in Kinney County?
Holding:
No. The court held that the district court in Travis County cannot resolve the merits of habeas applications for misdemeanor cases arising in Kinney County and granted the Kinney County Attorney’s application for a writ of prohibition. None of Texas’ habeas statutes, including Article 11.06, allow Travis County to intervene in these matters. “The Criminal Court of Appeals has jurisdiction over the entire state, and thus at least some interest in habeas actions arising anywhere in Texas. The same cannot be said of a trial court of a different geographic location than the one in which the case arose.” Read opinion.
Commentary:
The writ of habeas corpus involved in these cases is found in Article 11.05 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, which has been construed to be a constitutional writ, not one of the more typical statutory writs with which prosecutors are familiar. The Court suggests that an out-of-county (or “distant”) court might be able to issue a writ of habeas corpus in such cases, but merely issuing the writ would not decide the merits of the defendant’s claim. In a typical case, the out-of-county court would then be required to transfer the case to the county where the defendant was charged. The court suggests that a nearer (or even non-adjacent) county court might be able to handle the merits of a writ of habeas corpus during a true catastrophe. None of these suggestions are the Court’s actual holdings, however. In the vast majority of cases, an out-of-county court should transfer a writ of habeas corpus to the county where a defendant was charged.
Rios v. State
No. PD-0441-21 12/7/22
Issue:
Is violation of the constitutional right to a jury trial subject to a harm analysis, or is it structural error calling for automatic reversal?
Holding:
Structural error calling for reversal and new trial. “This Court does not usually recognize structural errors until the United States Supreme Court identifies them, but we believe resolution of this issue is sufficiently clear that we will deviate from our usual practice and hold that a violation of the federal constitutional right to a jury trial is structural error.” Read opinion.
Dissent (Keller, P.J.):
The dissent would conclude that although the parties did not execute a written waiver of the defendant’s right to a jury as required by Code of Criminal Procedure Article 1.13, the record otherwise showed that the defendant was aware of and waived his right to a jury trial. Read dissent.
Commentary:
The error in this case appears to be the failure of the record to reflect that the defendant intelligently and knowingly waived his constitutional right to a jury trial, not just the defendant’s failure to sign a form indicating that he was waiving his right to a jury trial—a statutory requirement. Whether this first error is a “structural error” is of interest mainly to post-conviction prosecutors. What this case emphasizes for trial prosecutors is the importance of ensuring that a defendant is waiving his right to a jury trial, which is usually shown by having the defendant waive his right to a jury trial in writing. What makes this case even more unusual is that it was abated to the trial court to determine whether the defendant intelligently and knowingly waived his right to a jury trial. The majority noted that it is an open question whether that is a proper subject of an abatement. Direct appeal is supposed to be based only upon the record that exists, and nothing more. Once again, an abatement would not have been necessary if the record was clear that the defendant waived his right to a jury trial in writing.