Matter of H.V.R.

974 S.W.2d 213, 1998 Tex. App. LEXIS 2763
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 6, 1998
DocketNo. 04-97-00364-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 974 S.W.2d 213 (Matter of H.V.R.) 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
Matter of H.V.R., 974 S.W.2d 213, 1998 Tex. App. LEXIS 2763 (Tex. Ct. App. 1998).

Opinion

OPINION

DUNCAN, Justice.

H.V.R. appeals the trial court’s order transferring him from the Texas Youth Commission to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice — Institutional Division to serve the remainder of his twentyfive year determinate sentence for delinquent conduct for murder and attempted murder. He asks that we [214]*214reverse the trial court’s transfer order and recommit him to TYC, so he may be discharged on his twenty-first birthday, because the trial court failed to hold his transfer hearing before the thirtieth day before his eighteenth birthday. We hold the trial court’s failure to hold a transfer hearing before the thirtieth day before a juvenile’s eighteenth birthday constitutes error but it does not deprive the juvenile court of jurisdiction to thereafter order the juvenile transferred to TDCJ. We therefore overrule H.V.R.’s point of error and affirm the trial court’s transfer order.

Applicable Version of Title 3

H.V.R. was committed to TYC for acts committed on or about October 1, 1993; therefore, the version of Title 3 of the Texas Family Code in effect on that date applies.1 Under this version of Title 3, the trial court “must” hold a “release hearing on a person who is the subject of a notice of transfer ... before 30 days before the person’s 18th birthday.” Act of June 17, 1987, 70th Leg., R.S., ch. 385, § 13, 1987 Tex. Gen. Laws 1891, 1896 (amended 1995) (current version at Tex. Fam.Code § 54.11(h) (Vernon 1996)). At the hearing, the trial court “may” order the juvenile recommitted to TYC without a determinate sentence, transferred to TDCJ “for the completion of [his] determinate sentence,” or “discharge[d].” Act of June 15, 1991, 72nd Leg., R.S., ch. 574, § 3,1991 Tex. Gen. Laws 2053, 2053-54 (amended 1995) (current version at Tex. Fam.Code § 54.11(i) (Vernon 1996)). If the juvenile has not been discharged or transferred by his twenty-first birthday, TYC “shall discharge [him] from its custody....” Act of June 15, 1991, 72nd Leg., R.S., ch. 574, § 4, 1991 Tex. Gen. Laws 2053, 2054 (amended 1995) (current version at Tex. Hum. Res.Code 61.084(e) (Vernon Supp.1998)).

Factual and Procedural Background

In June 1994, fifteen-year-old H.V.R. pled true to the State’s petition alleging delinquent conduct for murder and attempted murder, and the juvenile court assessed a determinate sentence of twenty-five years and committed him to TYC. In the sixth month before H.V.R.’s eighteenth birthday, TYC notified the juvenile court that H.V.R. would not complete his determinate sentence by his eighteenth birthday and asked the court to conduct a release hearing before the thirtieth day before H.V.R.’s next birthday and issue a bench warrant to permit H.V.R.’s appearance at the hearing. The trial court granted both requests, scheduling a hearing for the Monday preceding the thirtieth day before H.V.R.’s eighteenth birthday and, on the Thursday preceding the hearing, issuing a bench warrant. On the Friday preceding the hearing, however, the deputy sheriff charged with executing the bench warrant notified the court he was unable to do so because icy roads prevented transporting H.V.R. to San Antonio, a situation that continued through the following Tuesday. As a result, H.V.R.’s transfer hearing was not held until the twenty-seventh day before his eighteenth birthday.2 H.V.R. objected to the hearing on this ground, but the trial court overruled his objection and, at the conclusion of the hearing, ordered him transferred to TDCJ on his eighteenth birthday to serve the remainder of his sentence.

Standard of Review

H.V.R. asks us to review the juvenile court’s resolution of a question of law— whether the failure to hold a transfer hearing before the thirtieth day before his eighteenth birthday deprived the court of jurisdiction to thereafter transfer him to TDCJ or, as a [215]*215matter of law, constituted harmful error. We therefore review the trial court’s ruling de novo. Guzman v. State, 955 S.W.2d 85, 89 (Tex.Crim.App.1997).

Discussion.

“In construing a statute, our primary objective is to give effect to the Legislature’s intent.” Mitchell Energy Corp. v. Ashworth, 943 S.W.2d 436, 438 (Tex.1997). We therefore “presume! ] that ... a just and reasonable result is intended,” and the “public interest is favored over any private interest.” Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. § 311.021(3), (5) (Vernon 1988). “[Wlhether or not the statute is considered ambiguous on its face,” we may consider the “object sought to be obtained,” the “circumstances under which the statute was enacted,” the “legislative history,” and the “consequences of a particular construction.” Id. § 311.023(l)-(3), (5). Against this background, we must determine whether “must” should be construed as “ereat[ing] or recognizpng] a condition precedent” or, conversely, whether “the context in which [it] appears necessarily requires a different construction ” Id. § 311.016(3) (Vernon Supp.1998).

In enacting Title 3, the Texas Legislature sought “to protect the welfare of the community” and, “consistent with the protection of the public interest, to remove from children committing unlawful acts the taint of criminality and the consequences of criminal behavior and to substitute a program of treatment, training, and rehabilitation.”3 In 1987, consistent with its dominant purpose of protecting the community welfare, the Legislature amended Title 3 to permit a juvenile court to assess a “determinate sentence”4 when a juvenile committed capital murder or one of the enumerated first-degree felony offenses.5 See generally Robert O. Dawson, The Third Justice System: The New Juvenile-Criminal System of Determinate Sentencing for the Youthful Violent Offender in Texas, 19 St. MaRy’s L.J. 943 (1988).

Under this new determinate sentencing scheme, if a prosecutor obtained grand jury approval of a petition alleging delinquent conduct for one of the enumerated violent offenses,6 the petition was deemed an indictment,7 and the juvenile court was authorized to assess a determinate sentence by which the juvenile was initially committed to TYC and then, “on or after the 18th birthday of the child,”8 transferred by TYC to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice pursuant to section 61.084 of the Texas Human Resources Code “for any term of years not to exceed 30 years.”9

The 1987 version of section 61.084 required TYC to transfer to TDCJ all eighteen-year-old juveniles committed to its custody under a section 54.04(d)(3) determinate sentence if the juvenile had not yet completed his sentence or been released with the approval of, or by order of, the committing juvenile court.10 Transfer was not, however, auto[216]*216matic. Rather, the determinate sentencing scheme provided the juvenile with a “second chance hearing” at which the juvenile was given a “second chance to persuade the court that he should not be imprisoned.’’ In re D.S.,

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Matter of Hvr
974 S.W.2d 213 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1998)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
974 S.W.2d 213, 1998 Tex. App. LEXIS 2763, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/matter-of-hvr-texapp-1998.