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Civil appellate, criminal appellate, and criminal trial lawyer at 704 North Thompson Street, #157, Conroe, Texas 77301-2578, (936) 494-1393.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Texas's Court of Criminal Appeals Tells Dallas State Appeals Court Dallas Has Jurisdiction over Discovery Mandamus

What do you do if the Texas state trial court that convicts you won't let you see the Reporter's Record in your trial, so that you can't make a proper habeas corpus application? Your application is very unlikely to be granted if you can't point to the exact place in the record where the law was violated to hold you. Philippe Padieu couldn't get his, so he sought a writ of mandamus against the trial court from the justices above that trial court-- in this case, they were in Dallas. The Dallas justices told him that they did not have the power to help him, that they didn't have jurisdiction. It appears that they said it because the point of Padieu's looking at the record was to make a habeas application, but for a person with a final felony conviction, the only court with jurisdiction over the application would be the Court of Criminal Appeals. Since Padieu's mandamus was, in their view, related to a habeas application, it was a CCA matter and not for them.
In a per curiam opinion, that is, an unsigned opinion, the CCA required the Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas (Don't confuse this with the federal Fifth Circuit in New Orleans.) to consider Padieu's mandamus petition. The CCA noted that no habeas petition had yet been made for Padieu, and said his situation was like a person who was seeking post-conviction DNA testing. Under the DNA testing statute, trial courts continue to have jurisdiction over such matters, even if the point of them generally was to generate evidence for a habeas application over which the CCA alone would have jurisdiction.
Philippe Padieu v. Court of Appeals of Texas, Fifth District, No. AP-76,727 (Tex. Crim. App., Jan. 9, 2013) (orig. proceeding) (per curiam).

4 comments:

  1. Thank you this helps quite a bit understanding what all the legalese means. Padieu has a prior record from 1986-87 that we are also trying to learn more about. In that case he was successful getting early release. Still was guilty, but would be interesting to know if he is trying same approach. Or anything he possibly can. Susan Brown, victim. How can we get details on this: 822 F.2d 56: United States of America, Plaintiff-appellee, v. Phillipe Padieu, Defendant-appellant
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    United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit. - 822 F.2d 56
    Submitted April 17, 1987.Decided June 12, 1987

    Before RUSSELL, PHILLIPS and WILKINSON, Circuit Judges.

    Phillipe Padieu, appellant pro se.

    Robert Joseph Seidel, Jr., Office of the United States Attorney, for appellee.

    PER CURIAM:

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    Replies
    1. 1. I am so sorry about your victimization.
      2. The Texas prosecutors who wrote about trying Padieu's case at http://www.tdcaa.com/node/4922 wrote that they they had a copy of Padieu's penitentiary packet which is a formal certification that a particular person has been convicted and has served time for one or more particular crimes. I do not know how long the Collin County District Clerk in McKinney, Texas holds on to evidence in old cases, but that pen packet is probably in the court records in that office. The District Attorney's office also has victims' services people who might well help you.
      3. As I sit here, I don't know anything about Padieu's federal early release. Federal sentences generally are much less likely to be shortened significantly compared to Texas state sentences (Federal sentences are generally much shorter than Texas state sentences.).
      4. The federal matter you ask about was Padieu's unsuccessful motion under a federal law- volume 28 of the United States Code section 2255- which is a Congressional substitute for an application for writ of habeas corpus by a federal prisoner. As my post indicated, it is reasonable to think that he wants to review the Texas trial reporter's record to be able to apply apply for a state writ of habeas corpus under Tex. Code Crim. Proc. art. 11.07 so as to overturn his judgment and sentence and get out.

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  2. http://www.tdcaa.com/casesummaries/january-11-2013 also comments on the Padieu case.

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  3. Investigation Discovery has a episode of their series of Very Bad Men on Padieu called Lethal Lover. http://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/very-bad-men-2014/episode-4-season-3/lethal-lover/306994

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