Moliere v. State

574 S.W.3d 21
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedDecember 11, 2018
DocketNO. 14-17-00594-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 574 S.W.3d 21 (Moliere v. State) 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
Moliere v. State, 574 S.W.3d 21 (Tex. Ct. App. 2018).

Opinion

(1) filing a complaint or information;
(2) docketing the case;
(3) taxing costs against the defendant;
(4) issuing original writs and subpoenas;
(5) swearing in and impaneling a jury;
(6) receiving and recording the verdict;
(7) filing each paper entered in the case; and
(8) swearing in witnesses in the case.

Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 102.005.

Appellant concedes that "[t]here is no question that the foregoing services provided by the clerk are legitimate criminal justice purposes." Appellant argues that, like the prosecutor's fee, the district clerk's fee is unconstitutional because revenue from the court cost is not directed to the district clerk by statute, but instead goes to the general fund. For the reasons discussed above, we disagree. Article 102.005(c) shows that the fee falls within the first category of constitutional court-cost statutes: it is collected to recoup costs expended in the trial of the case. See Peraza , 467 S.W.3d at 517 ("We continue to hold, as we did in Weir [v. State , 278 S.W.3d 364 (Tex. Crim. App. 2009) ], that court costs should be related to the recoupment of costs of judicial resources."); Carson , 159 S.W.2d at 130 ;

*32Johnson , 562 S.W.3d at 176-77, 2018 WL 4925456, at *5 ; Allen , 570 S.W.3d at 806-07, 2018 WL 4138965, at *8.

Two other courts of appeals recently have addressed facial constitutional challenges to the district clerk's fee, and both upheld the statute as constitutional. See Thornton v. State , No. 05-17-00220-CR, 2018 WL 2773390, at *3 (Tex. App.-Dallas June 11, 2018, no pet.) ; Davis v. State , 519 S.W.3d 251, 257 (Tex. App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 2017, pet. ref'd). Both courts addressed arguments like those made by appellant here: that the statute is facially unconstitutional because it does not direct where the funds are to be spent or because the funds "might be spent for a purpose not contemplated by the statute." Thornton , 2018 WL 2773390, at *2, *3 ; Davis , 519 S.W.3d at 257. Both courts rejected the argument, relying on the directive in Peraza that an appellant cannot succeed on a facial challenge to a statute simply based on "how the revenues might be spent in practice." Id. Like the courts in Thornton and Davis , we conclude the statute authorizing the collection of the district clerk's fee is constitutional. We overrule appellant's third issue.

CONCLUSION

Having overruled appellant's three issues on appeal, we affirm the trial court's judgment.

DISSENTING OPINION ON DENIAL OF MOTION FOR EN BANC RECONSIDERATION

Meagan Hassan Justice

Moliere was indicted for assault family violence (a Class A misdemeanor), the jury returned a verdict of guilty, the trial court entered judgment, and a panel of this court affirmed.1 While Moliere seeks en banc reconsideration on several grounds, I believe the primary relevant question is limited to whether Apprendi2 demands that a jury determine whether the alleged crime involved family violence and that question was answered by the jury when it convicted Moliere for misdemeanor assault involving family violence. The trial court permissibly took judicial notice of the conviction under the plain terms of Code of Criminal Procedure article 42.013. Nonetheless, I would grant en banc reconsideration to address two material errors in the panel's opinion that appear to threaten "the uniformity of the court's decisions." See Tex. R. App. P. 41.2 (c).

1. Illegal sentences can be attacked for the first time on appeal.

Moliere argues the panel incorrectly concluded, "that appellant's sentence was not illegal and thus he cannot rely on that doctrine to raise his issue on appeal." Moliere v. State, No. 14-17-00594-CR, 2018 WL 6493882, at *2 (Tex. App.-Houston [14th Dist.] Dec. 11, 2018, no pet. h.). Specifically, he argues the panel's assessment "puts the cart before the horse" because "[t]he ability to raise an illegal-sentence issue on appeal does not depend on whether the appellate court ultimately finds the illegal-sentence issue to be meritorious." I agree with Moliere and conclude the panel's opinion improperly implies a defendant's illegal-sentence claim must be meritorious before it can be raised as an issue on appeal.

2. The panel's opinion misstates relevant law.

*33The panel concluded that, "To establish that his sentence is illegal, [Moliere] must first establish that the statute is facially unconstitutional." Id . I emphatically reject this contention as a misstatement of law that is predicated upon cases that do not stand for the proposition presented.

In Mizell v. State , the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals considered an appeal from a $0 fine based on a conviction for official oppression; because the fine was outside of the statutory range created by Penal Code section 12.21 (concerning the punishment range for Class A misdemeanors), the $0 fine was an illegal sentence "that ha[d] no legal effect". Mizell v. State, 119 S.W.3d 804, 806 (Tex. Crim. App. 2003) (en banc). At no time was the constitutionality of the official oppression statute (or section 12.21 ) ever implicated; in fact, the word "Constitution" (and all variants thereof) is absent from the Court of Criminal Appeals's opinion.

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Bluebook (online)
574 S.W.3d 21, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/moliere-v-state-texapp-2018.