Ex Parte David Martinez Martinez v. the State of Texas
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Opinion
In the Court of Appeals Sixth Appellate District of Texas at Texarkana
No. 06-23-00211-CR
EX PARTE DAVID MARTINEZ MARTINEZ
On Appeal from the County Court Kinney County, Texas Trial Court No. 10464CR
Before Stevens, C.J., van Cleef and Rambin, JJ. Memorandum Opinion by Justice Rambin MEMORANDUM OPINION
David Martinez Martinez appeals the trial court’s order in this Operation Lone Star
(OLS) case, which denied his application for a writ of habeas corpus without an evidentiary
hearing. In line with the precedent of the Fourth Court of Appeals, we previously determined
that Martinez’s claim was cognizable, a decision upheld by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
in Ex parte Aparicio, No. PD-0461-23, 2024 WL 4446878, at *8 (Tex. Crim. App. Oct. 9, 2024).
In this case, Martinez was denied the benefit of an evidentiary hearing, while Ex parte Aparicio
was decided after a full evidentiary hearing. Even so, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
reversed our decision requiring the trial court to conduct any evidentiary hearing. Instead, they
remanded this matter to us to decide whether Martinez made a prima facie showing that he was
arrested and prosecuted because of his gender.1
As part of OLS, Martinez, a noncitizen, was arrested for trespassing on private property
in Kinney County, Texas. He filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus seeking dismissal
of the criminal charge based on a violation of his rights under the United States Constitution’s
Equal Protection Clause and the Texas Constitution’s Equal Rights Amendment. See U.S.
CONST. amend. XIV; TEX. CONST. art. 1, § 3(a). Specifically, Martinez argued the State’s
selective prosecution of men, and not similarly situated women, for criminal trespass as part of
OLS violated his state and federal equal protection rights.
In Ex parte Aparicio, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals discussed evidence introduced
at the evidentiary hearing in that case, which also pertained to the administration of OLS cases in
1 Originally appealed to the Fourth Court of Appeals, this case was transferred to this Court by the Texas Supreme Court pursuant to its docket equalization efforts. See TEX. GOV’T CODE ANN. § 73.001 (Supp.). 2 Kinney County. Ex parte Aparicio, 2024 WL 4446878, at *12–13. For the reasons discussed in
Ex parte Aparicio, we find that Martinez would be unable to make a prima facie showing that he
was arrested and prosecuted because of his gender.
As a result, we affirm the trial court’s denial of Martinez’s pretrial writ of habeas corpus.
Jeff Rambin Justice
Date Submitted: December 11, 2024 Date Decided: December 19, 2024
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