Opinion
NO. WR-84,603-01
05-25-2016
IN RE NOE ARTIGA, Applicant
ON APPLICATION FOR A WRIT OF MANDAMUS CAUSE NO. 133391001010 IN THE 182ND DISTRICT COURT FROM HARRIS COUNTY JOHNSON, J., filed a concurring statement in which ALCALA, J., joined. CONCURRING STATEMENT
Relator wrote to the District Clerk of Harris County to ask how much it would cost to copy the transcripts of the clerk's and reporter's record "for all of my proceedings. Please ensure you include my Juvenile Certification as an adult and its proceedings in your estimate." His letter was returned with a "VOID" stamp on it and with a notice from the district clerk's office that cited to TEX. GOV'T CODE section 552.028 and stated that it does not have to respond to his request for information because he is incarcerated. In support of that position, the letter noted the clerk's office "Standard Operating Procedure for Criminal Customer Service": the clerk "reviews the inmate letter to ensure that it is not styled as a petition or addressed to a named Judge, if not the file mark is then CANCELLED. The original letter and envelope with a Notice to Inmate Returning Correspondence form (see Exhibit B attached) is then returned to the inmate."
In March of 2014, more than two years ago, this Court decided In re Bonilla, 424 S.W.3d 528 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014), a case in which the facts are almost identical to facts in this case, right down to being a case from Harris County. Eight judges joined the Court's opinion, and the ninth judge concurred in the judgment:
When it declined to provide any information about the amount it would cost to purchase a trial and appellate transcript, the district clerk deprived Rosali Bonilla, relator, an imprisoned individual, of his constitutional right to have access to the courts. In denying relator's request for information, the district clerk relied on statutory authority in Section 552.028 of the Texas Government Code that broadly permits a governmental body to decline to give information requested by an imprisoned individual or his agent unless that agent is an attorney. . . . We conclude that, when the information sought by an imprisoned individual relates only to the amount that it would cost to obtain trial and appellate transcripts for use in preparing an application for a writ of habeas corpus, application of Section 552.028 to deny the prisoner access to that information unconstitutionally infringes on his federal constitutional right to have access to the courts. . . . A district clerk must provide information to an imprisoned or confined individual or his agent about the amount it would cost to obtain trial and appellate transcripts so that the individual may then pay for them and use them to pursue an application for a writ of habeas corpus.
Id. at 529-30, 534.
Two years have passed, and the district clerk of Harris County apparently continues to deprive inmates of their constitutional right to access the courts. This is not a case in which an unpublished order, directed to a county other than Harris, chastised the district clerk and instructed the clerk to change the manner in which such requests are handled. The opinion is published, and the order to change "standard operating procedure" was directed at the very same district clerk- the district clerk of Harris County. It is startling that Harris County continues to disregard the explicit holding of Bonilla. One can only hope that the district clerk will quickly revise the standard operating procedures of that office so that they conform to established law and then retrain the clerk's staff to follow the corrected procedures. One can also hope that the resources of the clerk's office and of this Court will not be further squandered by a continuing failure to revise and retrain, resulting in future applications for a writ of mandamus.
As in Bonilla, relator filed a motion for leave to file an application for writ of mandamus in this Court, and we held the case in abeyance and ordered the district clerk to respond. As in Bonilla, the clerk then provided to relator information about cost, stated a dollar amount as the cost of the requested transcripts, and specified how the costs could be paid. Therefore, as in Bonilla, relator has received the requested relief, and this Court correctly denies leave to file his application for writ of mandamus. Filed: May 25, 2016
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