Opinion
05-21-00704-CR
06-24-2022
JEROME JOHNSON, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee
On Appeal from the Criminal District Court No. 1 Dallas County, Texas Trial Court Cause No. F01-53637-JH
Before Myers, Pedersen, and Nowell, Justices.
ORDER
ERIN A. NOWELL, JUSTICE.
Before the Court is appellant's June 21, 2022 "Objection to this Court's May 25, 2022 Denial of his Motion for and (sic) Injunctive Relief." On May 19, 2022, appellant filed a motion for injunctive relief, contending that Officer Kizzie, the property officer at the Estelle Unit where appellant is located, wrongly confiscated his legal property relating to his appeal. This purportedly occurred when appellant was transported to the trial court for a hearing. In his May 19 motion, appellant asked this Court to issue an injunction and order Officer Kizzie and Head Warden Lam to return his property to him.
As we explained in our May 25 order, courts of appeals have limited injunctive powers. We may issue all "writs necessary to enforce the jurisdiction of the court." TEX. GOV'T CODE ANN. § 22.221(a). However, the law is clear that a court of appeals "has no original jurisdiction to grant writs of injunction, except to protect its jurisdiction over the subject matter of a pending appeal, or to prevent an unlawful interference with the enforcement of its judgments and decrees." Ott v. Bell, 606 S.W.2d 955, 957 (Tex. Civ. App.-Waco 1980, no writ). A party seeking extraordinary relief, such as a writ of injunction, must file a petition with the Clerk of the Court. See TEX. R. APP. P. 52.1 ("An original appellate proceeding seeking extraordinary relief-such as a writ of habeas corpus, mandamus, prohibition, injunction, or quo warranto--is commenced by filing a petition with the clerk of the appropriate appellate court. The petition must be captioned 'In re [name of relator].'").
We first noted that appellant filed his motion in his pending appeal, rather than filing a petition with the Clerk as required by Rule 52.1. See TEX. R. APP. P. 52.1. Nevertheless, we concluded that even if we were to consider his motion, appellant (who has an appeal pending in which the briefs have been filed and the case is at issue) did not show that a writ of injunction was necessary to protect our jurisdiction over his pending appeal in this Court or to prevent interference with the enforcement of one of this Court's judgments. In re Birchett, No. 05-19-00600-CV, 2019 WL 2353450, at *1 (Tex. App.-Dallas June 4, 2019, orig. proceeding) (mem. op.). In light of these circumstances, we denied appellant's motion. Appellant's June 21, 2022 objection, which we shall treat as a motion to reconsider, asks us to reconsider our ruling in the interest of justice. While we are not unsympathetic to appellant's situation, we nevertheless may not issue injunctive relief when we lack jurisdiction to do so. We DENY appellant's June 21 motion to reconsider.
We DIRECT the Clerk to send a copy of this order to Jerome Johnson, TDCJ #01198301, Estelle Unit, 264 FM 3478, Huntsville, TX 77320-3320; and the Dallas County District Attorney's Office, Appellate Division.