Ex parte McGee
2024 WL 3594187
Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas. Delivered: July 31, 2024. PD-0517-24.
The legal issue
While on bond in a pending criminal case, Warren McGee was alleged to have committed new offenses. Bond conditions usually include a “commit no new law violations” clause. The trial court—Harris County Criminal Court at Law No. 16—treated the alleged new offenses as contempt of the bond conditions and, in November 2022, held Mr. McGee in contempt and placed him on deferred-adjudication community supervision for one year.
Two problems with that, both raised in habeas: a contempt punishment cannot be deferred, and the notice was constitutionally insufficient to support a contempt finding in the first place.
On the day Mr. McGee filed for habeas, the trial court entered an order purporting to dismiss its own contempt judgment. The trial court’s plenary power over the contempt judgment had expired more than two months before. Mr. McGee argued, in an amended habeas application, that the dismissal had no legal effect because the trial court had no jurisdiction to enter it.
The habeas court denied relief, treating the contempt judgment as gone. The First Court of Appeals dismissed Mr. McGee’s appeal as moot, declining to address whether the trial court had jurisdiction to dismiss the judgment in the first place. The court of appeals said it was aware of no authority on the question.
What the Court held
The Court of Criminal Appeals granted review, vacated, and remanded. Per curiam.
Jurisdiction is a systemic requirement. Skinner v. State, 484 S.W.3d 434, 437 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016). Reviewing courts must address it whether or not the parties raise it. The court of appeals dismissed for lack of authority on the jurisdictional question without ordering briefing. Rule 31.1(a) permits submission without briefing only when necessary to do substantial justice. Here the dismissal made it harder, not easier, to reach the jurisdictional question the case actually presented.
The court of appeals must address whether the trial court had jurisdiction to dismiss its own contempt judgment after plenary power had expired.
Read the opinion
Appellate counsel: Mark Bennett.
See also the companion case, Ex parte Eugene.