In Re Leonel Morales, Relator v. the State of Texas

CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 9, 2024
Docket07-24-00159-CR
StatusPublished

This text of In Re Leonel Morales, Relator v. the State of Texas (In Re Leonel Morales, Relator v. the State of Texas) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In Re Leonel Morales, Relator v. the State of Texas, (Tex. Ct. App. 2024).

Opinion

In The Court of Appeals Seventh District of Texas at Amarillo

No. 07-24-00159-CR

IN RE LEONEL MORALES, RELATOR

ORIGINAL PROCEEDING

May 9, 2024 MEMORANDUM OPINION Before PARKER and DOSS and YARBROUGH, JJ.

Relator, Leonel Morales, proceeding pro se, seeks a writ of mandamus to compel

the “Travis County District Clerk, respondent, to provide . . . the cost to obtain his trial

transcriptions in . . . cause number [D-1-DC-11-900388], styled the State of Texas v.

Leonel Morales.” We dismiss this proceeding for want of jurisdiction.

In 2012, Morales appealed his conviction for aggravated sexual assault to the Third

Court of Appeals. That appeal was later transferred to this Court by the Texas Supreme

Court pursuant to its docket equalization efforts. See TEX. GOV’T CODE ANN. § 73.001.

We affirmed the trial court’s judgment in Morales v. State, No. 07-12-00464-CR, 2014

Tex. App. LEXIS 312, at *15 (Tex. App.—Amarillo Jan. 10, 2014, no pet.) (mem. op., not

designated for publication). Morales now seeks mandamus relief against the Travis County District Clerk to

obtain the costs for a copy of the reporter’s record from that appeal. We have authority

to issue writs of mandamus against a judge of a district or county court in our appellate

district and all writs necessary to enforce our jurisdiction. See TEX. GOV’T CODE ANN.

§§ 22.221(a), (b); 22.201(h) (identifying the counties comprising the Seventh Court of

Appeals District). Because Morales has no pending appeal in this Court and has not

demonstrated how issuance of the requested writ is necessary to enforce our jurisdiction,

we are without authority to issue said writ.

Accordingly, Relator’s petition is dismissed for want of jurisdiction.1

Per Curiam

Do not publish.

1 We note that we previously provided Morales with a copy of the clerk’s record from his criminal

appeal. However, the Court no longer possesses the reporter’s record from that appeal due to a cyberattack in 2020. 2

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