State v. Morales

• Citation: 869 S.W.2d 941
• Decision Date: 12 January 1994
• Docket Number: No. D-2393,D-2393
• Parties: The STATE of Texas, Petitioner, v. Linda MORALES, Tom Doyal, Patricia Cramer, Charlotte Taft and John Thomas, Respondents.
• Court: Supreme Court of Texas

Page 941

869 S.W.2d 941

The STATE of Texas, Petitioner, v. Linda MORALES, Tom Doyal, Patricia Cramer, Charlotte Taft and John Thomas, Respondents.

No. D-2393.

Supreme Court of Texas.

Jan. 12, 1994.

Harry G. Potter, III, Dan Morales, Austin, for petitioner.

J. Patrick Wiseman, Pamela C. Oglesby, Austin, Nell Hahn, Lafayette, LA, for respondents.

CORNYN, Justice, delivered the opinion of the Court, in which GONZALEZ, HIGHTOWER, HECHT and ENOCH, Justices join.

Equity jurisdiction does not flow merely from the alleged inadequacy of a remedy at law, nor can it originate solely from a court's good intentions to do what seems "just" or "right;" the jurisdiction of Texas courts--the very authority to decide cases--is conferred solely by the constitution and the statutes of the state. ¹

In this state's bifurcated system of civil and criminal jurisdiction, a civil court has jurisdiction to declare constitutionally invalid and enjoin the enforcement of a criminal statute only when (1) there is evidence that the statute at issue is unconstitutionally applied by a rule, policy, or other noncriminal means subject to a civil court's equity powers and irreparable injury to property or personal rights is threatened, or (2) the enforcement of an unconstitutional statute threatens irreparable injury to property rights. A naked declaration as to the constitutionality of a criminal statute alone, without a valid request for injunctive relief, is clearly not within the jurisdiction of a Texas court sitting in equity. ²

This is a constitutional challenge to TEX.PENAL CODE ANN. § 21.06 (Vernon 1989) ("21.06"), ³ Texas' sodomy statute. The trial court declared this criminal statute to be unconstitutional and enjoined its enforcement. ⁴ The court of appeals affirmed solely on the basis that the statute violates the plaintiffs' constitutional right of privacy under the Texas Constitution. We conclude, however, that neither this court, nor the courts below, have jurisdiction to enjoin the enforcement of, or issue a declaratory judgment determining the constitutionality of, 21.06. ⁵ Therefore, we reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and remand this case to the trial court with instructions to dismiss.

Linda Morales, Tom Doyal, Patricia Cramer, Charlotte Taft, and John Thomas ("plaintiffs") filed this suit challenging the constitutionality of 21.06, which they claim, by its very existence, stigmatizes them as criminals for engaging in conduct protected by their privacy rights under the Texas Constitution. They also allege that 21.06 limits homosexuals' career and employment opportunities and encourages hate crimes. Although they do not dispute the Attorney General's contention that 21.06 has not been, and in all probability will not be, enforced against private consensual conduct between adults, the plaintiffs also claim to fear prosecution.

The Attorney General denies the statute is unconstitutional; but he also contends that civil courts under these circumstances have no power to grant either injunctive or declaratory relief based on the unconstitutionality of a criminal statute. See, e.g., Crouch v. Craik, 369 S.W.2d 311, 315 (Tex.1963) ("It is only where a criminal statute is void and vested property rights are being impinged as the result of an attempt to enforce such void statutes that the jurisdiction of the courts of equity can be invoked.").

Furthermore, the Attorney General argues that the plaintiffs seek adjudication of a hypothetical controversy: there is no record of even a single instance in which the sodomy statute has been prosecuted against conduct that the plaintiffs claim is constitutionally protected; none of the plaintiffs claims a specific instance of career or employment opportunities having been restricted by the existence of the statute; ⁶ none of the plaintiffs alleges having been the victim of a hate crime, or a fear of becoming the victim of any specific threatened future event.

The court of appeals acknowledged the general validity of the State's argument: civil equity courts have no jurisdiction to enjoin the enforcement of criminal statutes in the absence of irreparable harm to vested property rights. However, the court of appeals held that this court had enlarged a civil court's equity jurisdiction to protect personal rights in Passel v. Fort Worth Indep. Sch. Dist., 440 S.W.2d 61 (Tex.1969), on appeal after remand, 453 S.W.2d 888 (Tex.Civ.App.--Fort Worth 1970, writ ref'd n.r.e.), cert. denied, 402 U.S. 968, 91 S.Ct. 1667, 29 L.Ed.2d 133 (1971). The court of appeals, therefore, proceeded to the merits of the case and affirmed the judgment of the trial court, declaring the sodomy statute unconstitutional and enjoining its enforcement. 826 S.W.2d 201, 202-03.

I.

Equity jurisdiction is limited. Justice Joseph Story has explained the historical reasons for this limitation, as follows:

[I]n the infancy of our Courts of Equity, before their jurisdiction was settled, the chancellors themselves, "partly from their ignorance of the law (being frequently bishops or statesmen), partly from ambition and lust of power (encouraged by the arbitrary principles of the age they lived in), but principally from the narrow and unjust decisions of the Courts of Law, had arrogated to themselves such unlimited authority as hath totally been disclaimed by their successors for now (1765) above a century past. The decrees of the Court of Equity were then rather in the nature of awards, formed on the sudden, pro re nata, with more probity of intention than knowledge of the subject, founded on no settled principles, as being never designed, and therefore never used, as precedents."

JOSEPH STORY, 1 STORY'S EQUITY JURISPRUDENCE 18 (Melville M. Bigelow ed., 13th ed. 1886) (quoting 3 WILLIAM BLACKSTONE, COMMENTARIES *433) (emphasis added). Such unlimited authority, over time, became circumscribed by rules of procedure and limitations on jurisdiction. If an equity court's jurisdiction was limited only by its reach experience demonstrated that the arbitrary exercise of that power was certain to result. And if we endeavored:

To determine every particular case according to what is just, equal, and salutary, taking in all circumstances [it] is undoubtedly the idea of a court of equity in its perfection; and had we angels for judges such would be their method of proceeding without regarding any rules: but men are liable to prejudice and error, and for that reason, cannot safely be trusted with unlimited powers. Hence the necessity of establishing rules, to preserve uniformity of judgment in matters of equity as well as of common law: the necessity is perhaps greater in the former, because of the variety and intricacy of equitable circumstances. Thus though a particular case may require the interposition of equity to correct a wrong or supply a defect; yet the judge ought not to interpose, unless he can found his decree upon some rule that is equally applicable to all circumstances of the kind. If he be under no limitation, his decrees will appear arbitrary, though substantially just--and, which is worse, will often be arbitrary, and substantially unjust; for such, too frequently, are human proceeding when subjected to no control. General rules, it is true, must often produce decrees that are materially unjust; for no rule can be equally just in its application to a whole class of cases that are far from being the same in every circumstance--but this inconvenience must be tolerated, to avoid a greater, that of making judges arbitrary. A court of equity is a happy invention to remedy the errors of common law: but this remedy must stop some where; for courts cannot be established without end, to be checks one upon another. And hence, it is, that, in the nature of things, there cannot be any other check upon a court of equity but general rules.

HENRY HOME, PRINCIPLES OF EQUITY 46 (2d ed. 1767). See also THE FEDERALIST NO. 51, at 337 (Alexander Hamilton or James Madison) (Sherman F. Mittell ed., 1937) ("If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.").

The long-standing limitation on equity jurisdiction that controls this case relates to the narrow circumstances under which an equity court can construe a criminal statute. See JOHN NORTON POMEROY, 1 POMEROY'S EQUITY JURISPRUDENCE 509-10 (Spencer W. Symons ed., 5th ed. 1941) ("[E]quity will not ordinarily interfere with criminal prosecutions under unconstitutional statutes or ordinances unless the prevention of such prosecutions is essential to the safeguarding of rights of property."). ⁷

II.

There are four types of cases in which a party might seek relief from an equity court based on the alleged unconstitutionality of a criminal statute: (1) the statute is enforced and the party is being prosecuted, (2) the statute is enforced and the threat of prosecution is imminent, although the party has yet to be prosecuted, (3) there is no actual or threatened enforcement of the statute and the party does not seek an injunction against its enforcement, but the statute is nonetheless integrally related to conduct subject to the court's equity jurisdiction, or (4) there is no actual or threatened enforcement of the statute and no complaint of specific conduct remediable by injunction.

Most cases fall in either of the first two categories. In those contexts:

It is well settled that courts of equity will not interfere with the ordinary enforcement of a criminal statute unless the statute is unconstitutional and its enforcement will result in irreparable injury to vested property rights. The underlying reason for this rule is that the meaning and validity of a penal statute or ordinance should ordinarily be determined by courts exercising criminal jurisdiction. When these questions can be resolved in any criminal proceeding that may be instituted and vested property...