Opinion
NUMBER 13-15-00220-CR
02-18-2016
JORGE LUIS RAMIREZ, Appellant, v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee.
On appeal from the 156th District Court of Live Oak County, Texas.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Before Justices Garza, Perkes and Longoria
Memorandum Opinion by Justice Garza
Appellant Jorge Luis Ramirez was convicted of burglary of a building, a state-jail felony. See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 30.02(c)(1) (West, Westlaw through 2015 R.S.). On appeal, he argues that the trial court erred in ordering him to reimburse the Live Oak County Sheriff's Office for the entire amount of costs it incurred in hiring a private company to extradite him. We affirm as modified.
I. BACKGROUND
In 2004, Ramirez pleaded guilty to the underlying offense and was sentenced to two years' confinement and a $1,000 fine, with the sentence suspended and community supervision ordered for four years. The State moved to revoke Ramirez's community supervision in 2008, alleging that Ramirez had, among other things, withdrawn himself from alcohol and drug treatment and absconded.
On January 11, 2015, Ramirez was arrested in Bay Minette, Alabama. The Live Oak County Sheriff's Office hired U.S. Prisoner Transport ("USPT"), a private company providing prisoner transportation services, in order to have Ramirez extradited from Alabama to George West, Texas. Upon Ramirez's return, he pleaded true to the allegations in the State's motion to revoke. The trial court revoked his community supervision and sentenced him to 180 days in state jail with credit for time served. The final judgment, dated February 26, 2015, ordered Ramirez to pay the original $1,000 fine as well as $2,392.25 in court costs.
Ramirez filed a motion for new trial seeking to "correct the judgment for court costs." The motion alleged that $1,630 of the assessed costs were for his transportation by USPT from Alabama to Texas, and that this assessment was improper because it had no basis in statute. Attached to the motion were: (1) a bill of costs from the Live Oak County district clerk, which defense counsel had obtained upon request, assessing $1,630 against Ramirez for a "transport fee"; and (2) an itemized invoice sent to the Live Oak County Sheriff's Office from USPT stating that the transfer of Ramirez from the county jail in Bay Minette, Alabama to the Live Oak County Jail cost $1,630. After a hearing, the trial court denied the motion for new trial. This appeal followed.
Ramirez's motion for new trial also alleged that the trial court's assessment of costs for a court-appointed attorney was improper because he was indigent. At the new trial hearing, he argued that "the attorney's fees on the bill of costs was written out as $490, which was incorrect, as the original attorney's fees had been $420, not [$]490." The trial court ordered the judgment to be reformed to reflect the correct amount. Ramirez does not challenge that aspect of the judgment on appeal.
The invoice had previously been entered into evidence at the revocation hearing.
The State has not filed a brief to assist us in the resolution of this matter.
II. DISCUSSION
By two issues on appeal, Ramirez argues that (1) the trial court erred by ordering him to pay the "actual expense" of his extradition by a private agency because there is no statute authorizing the court to do so, and (2) the judgment should be reformed "to reflect the actual amount of permissible transport costs as permitted by statute."
A. Standard of Review and Applicable Law
The Texas Code of Criminal Procedure requires that a judgment order a defendant to pay court costs. TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. arts. 42.15, 42.16 (West, Westlaw through 2015 R.S.). Only statutorily authorized court costs may be assessed against a criminal defendant. Johnson v. State, 423 S.W.3d 385, 389 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014); see TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 103.002 (West, Westlaw through 2015 R.S.) ("An officer may not impose a cost for a service not performed or for a service for which a cost is not expressly provided by law.").
"[W]e review the assessment of court costs on appeal to determine if there is a basis for the cost, not to determine if there was sufficient evidence offered at trial to prove each cost." Johnson, 423 S.W.3d at 390. "[T]raditional Jackson [v. Virginia] evidentiary-sufficiency principles do not apply" to our review of an assessment of court costs because such costs "are not part of the guilt or sentence of a criminal defendant, nor must they be proven at trial." Id. (citing Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 316 (1979) ("[N]o person shall be made to suffer the onus of a criminal conviction except upon sufficient proof—defined as evidence necessary to convince a trier of fact beyond a reasonable doubt of the existence of every element of the offense.")); see Habib v. State, 431 S.W.3d 737, 743 (Tex. App.—Amarillo 2014, pet. ref'd).
Under subsection (a) of article 102.011 of the code of criminal procedure, a defendant convicted of a felony or misdemeanor must pay certain fees "for services performed in the case by a peace officer." TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 102.011(a) (West, Westlaw through 2015 R.S.). The fees listed in subsection (a) do not include extradition costs. See id. Subsection (b) of the statute states:
In addition to fees provided by Subsection (a) of this article, a defendant required to pay fees under this article shall also pay 29 cents per mile for mileage required of an officer to perform a service listed in this subsection and to return from performing that service. . . . In calculating mileage, the officer must use the railroad or the most practical route by private conveyance. The defendant shall also pay all necessary and reasonable expenses for meals and lodging incurred by the officer in the performance of services under this subsection, to the extent such expenses meet the requirements of Section 611.001, Government Code. This subsection applies to:
Id. art. 102.011(b).(1) conveying a prisoner after conviction to the county jail;
(2) conveying a prisoner arrested on a warrant or capias issued in another county to the court or jail of the county; and
(3) traveling to execute criminal process, to summon or attach a witness, and to execute process not otherwise described by this article.
B. Analysis
Ramirez argues on appeal that "[a]rticle 102.011 is the only statutory authorization for compensating peace officers for the cost of extradition and it simply does not authorize the actual expense of using a private transport service." Nevertheless, he does not ask us to vacate the entire cost assessment pertaining to his extradition; instead, he concedes that he should have been ordered to pay 29 cents per mile as provided in subsection (b) of article 102.011. See id. According to a map attached as an exhibit to his new trial motion, the distance between Bay Minette and George West is 707 miles and a round trip between the two cities is 1,414 miles; therefore, he contends the proper amount of extradition costs was 29 cents times 1,414, or $410.06. He cites Price v. State, in which the Waco Court of Appeals modified a judgment to delete an assessed transport fee because the assessment was not authorized by statute. See Price v. State, No. 10-13-00403-CR, 2014 WL 4749075, at *1 (Tex. App.—Waco Sept. 18, 2014, no pet.) (mem. op., not designated for publication) (noting that the assessed fees "were for transport pursuant to a bench warrant" and that "such fees are not part of statutory court costs defendants must pay whether indigent or not").
We agree with Ramirez. There is no dispute that USPT charged the Live Oak County Sheriff's Office $1,630 for extraditing Ramirez from Alabama to Texas. However, the statute authorizes an assessment of only 29 cents per mile for such costs. See TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 102.011. There is no statutory basis for assessing costs attributable to "conveying a prisoner arrested on a warrant or capias issued in another county" in excess of 29 cents per mile. Therefore, the trial court erred to the extent it ordered reimbursement for extradition costs in excess of 29 cents per mile. See Johnson, 423 S.W.3d at 390; Habib, 431 S.W.3d at 743. The correct amount of extradition costs according to the statute is $410.06, which is $1,219.94 less than the $1,630 assessed by the trial court. We therefore sustain Ramirez's two issues and modify the judgment to reduce the assessed court costs by $1,219.94.
The statute requires an additional assessment for "all necessary and reasonable expenses for meals and lodging incurred by the officer in the performance of services under this subsection . . . ." TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 102.011(b) (West, Westlaw through 2015 R.S.). However, the invoice provided by USPT is silent as to any meal or lodging expenses.
We note that the extradition was not actually carried out by "officers," see id. art. 102.011, but rather by a private company hired by the sheriff's office. Nevertheless, Ramirez appears to concede that the assessment of costs incurred by hiring a private extradition agency was proper under the statute; he merely disputes the amount assessed. Therefore, we assume for purposes of this opinion that employees of a private extradition agency are considered "officers" under the statute. --------
III. CONCLUSION
The trial court's judgment is affirmed as modified herein. See TEX. R. APP. P. 43.2(b).
DORI CONTRERAS GARZA
Justice Do not publish.
TEX. R. APP. P. 47.2(b). Delivered and filed the 18th day of February, 2016.