Second Court of Appeals
Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued - Week of November 21, 2016.
NOTE: Summaries are prepared by the court's staff attorneys and law clerks for public information only and reflect his or her interpretation alone of the facts and legal issues. The summaries are not part of the court's opinion in the case and should not be cited to, quoted, or relied upon as the opinion of the court.
Links to full text of opinions (PDF version) can be accessed by clicking the cause number.
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In re S.M.-R., No. 02-15-00287-CV (Nov. 23, 2016) (Livingston, C.J., joined by Sudderth, J.; Dauphinot, J., concurs and dissents with opinion).
Concurrence and Dissent: The evidence shows that indigent appellant Mother, appearing pro se on appeal, received Title IV-D services from the office of the attorney general (OAG) and that she was ordered to pay half the trial court costs, not attorney’s fees. Taking her pro se brief and the OAG’s brief together, I would construe her issue as a complaint that she was ordered to pay half the costs and hold that the trial court abused its discretion by ordering her to do so in violation of section 231.211(a) of the family code. I would then modify the trial court’s judgment to delete that order and instead order Father to pay all the court costs and would affirm the trial court’s judgment as modified.
Ingram v. State, No. 02-16-00157-CR (Nov. 23, 2016) (Gabriel, J., joined by Livingston, C.J., and Sudderth, J.).
Held: Three of the fourteen prescribed allocations for the statutory consolidated court cost imposed in the local government code relate to legitimate criminal-justice purposes as written; therefore, Appellant did not carry his burden to show that the consolidated court cost is facially unconstitutional. Similarly, the court cost imposed in the code of criminal procedure for child-abuse prevention applies only to defendants convicted of specified offenses committed against children, such as Appellant, and is related to legitimate criminal-justice purposes. Accordingly, Appellant failed to establish that this statute is facially unconstitutional.