Texas Supreme Court Rejects Pro-Life Case – Motion to Reconsider Filed

by David Bellow on January 22, 2020 at 12:04 PM

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The Supreme Court of Texas declined to take up case 19-0325, but there is a pending motion to reconsider. The Supreme Court of Texas is filled with great people who I am certain would care about the issues involved in this case, but more likely than not, the Supreme Court of Texas simply didn’t directly get told in the filings that the issue at hand involved life and access to justice as the technical legal arguments do not outright say this, and the Court gets a lot of cases and cannot take up them all. That is why a motion to reconsider the case has been filed with the SCOTX and the motion to reconsider specifically points out the importance of this case and for unborn baby life and pregnant women and access to justice.

This case has some pretty strong implications about the rights of unborn baby life and medical expenses and access to justice. Effectively, the lower court and 9th Court of Appeals has determined that unborn baby and pregnant mother medical expenses are not necessary and must be paid after court costs in a case. This ruling was a huge strike against women and babies and access to justice in general. The SCOTX not taking up the case effectively approves of and allows to stay in place the lower rulings which have wide-reaching implications.

The text of the Motion to Reconsider is here below:

MOTION TO RECONSIDER PETITION FOR REVIEW

Unborn Baby Expenses should NOT come after court costs and this Supreme Court should NOT vote AGAINST life. Access to Justice is DENIED if lower courts can simply refuse to consider expenses before determining ability to afford court costs.

Comes now Appellant and request this Honorable Supreme Court of Texas to reconsider appellant’s Petition for Review.

I request this court to reconsider their decision not to take up a petition for review of the above referenced cause. On the face of the appeal, the issues might not seem important enough for this Supreme Court to take up, even with apparent flaws or issues of the underling orders. I understand there are a lot of cases and the SCOTX can only take up a small percentage of them, however, I would like to express to this court that the underlying issues are much more important than they appear at first glance.

First, A denial of the Supreme Court’s review of this case will be a major anti-life statement. The 9th Court of Appeals decided that medical expenses of an unborn baby and pregnant mother are NOT valid expenses that should be paid before having to pay court costs of an appeal. Specifically, I had filed motion of material change in financial circumstances in regards to paying the large amount of court costs of an appeal. The change in circumstance was due to my wife becoming pregnant and there being new and vital medical expenses for the life of my unborn son and the health of my pregnant wife. The 9th Court of Appeals denied this motion and then dismissed the appeal stating that there had been NO reasonable reason for not being able to pay court costs. The 9th Court of Appeals effectively and literally determined that the life and health of an unborn baby and pregnant mother are NOT worth of consideration, and NOT reasonable or necessary to pay before having to pay appeals court costs. Appeals court costs must come first before medical expenses for the life and health of a baby is the statement and decision made by the 9th Court of Appeals. If this Supreme Court of Texas refuses to take up this petition for review, then this court is effectively agreeing with and upholding the radically wrong anti-life decision by the 9th Court of Appeals. Clearly the issues of this case are not simply about a small court costs disagreement, but rather it is about a much bigger and more important issues which will send an anti-life message across Texas if not reviewed by this Honorable Supreme Court.

Second, a denial of the Supreme Court’s review of this case will be a major blow to Access to Justice (which this Court has pushed hard recently to reform to allow access), and it would send a statement to Texas that Supreme Court guidelines for determining ability to afford costs are irrelevant and allow for lower court to use different and contradictory and vague and unconstitutional guidelines to determine inability to pay for access to courts and therefore violates due process. Specifically, in this instant case, the lower court did not follow the set guidelines and rules regarding affidavits of inability to afford costs. The biggest flaw is that the lower court did not even consider any personal or business expenses or obligations before determining ability to afford costs. This completely contradicts the Texas Supreme Court having rewritten indigency rules to require examination of ability to afford, not just ability to pay. Income of any amount cannot alone be examined before determining ability to afford costs without having first having examined expenses to or other obligations to determine what portion of income is even available to use after necessary expenses to live. In this instant case, the lower court NEVER examined ANY expenses or obligations and therefore could never have determined my ability to afford costs at that time. The lower court did not even examine my personal bank account or current personal income. The lower court only examined the money of a small business corporation that I had an ownership interest in. The court saw a few thousand dollars in the company account at the end of each month and said hey I should just raid the company account and get that money to pay my personal court costs because I am able to access the company bank account. Had the trial court actually followed indigency and ability to afford guidelines, the trial court would have seen that any payments I had gotten from the company were a year before the indigency hearing and and had not been received in nearly a year and the company had no positive value to me and was a young company owned by financing and another business who financed the start of the company and therefore was not even a positive asset to add as current income or asset positive value on an ability to afford cost form. Me simply being able to access the company bank account does not mean that the company money is mine to take even if I had gotten payments previously when the company had the ability to pay. The other owner of the company actually has a court order from a different court which PROHIBITS me from taking company money, which he has a majority interest in and which are for paying company expenses, and using it for my personal court costs. I would actually be violating a court order if I did take company money for personal expenses. But even if the court did determine I could just raid the company account, The court was required to, but never examined any expenses or obligations because if it had it would have found that the little money left over in the business account was to pay for the next week payroll of the employees of the small business or the taxes every three months or the debt payment to the companies and financial institutions that effectively owned the company through financing agreements. The lower court and opposing attorney Scott Browne and 9th Court of Appeals would have me commit fraud or other serious crimes or unethical behavior by taking company money that belonged to employee pay or belonged to the customer who gave that money to the business to but them a new heater. Surely this honorable Supreme Court would not agree with me resorting to stealing from employee paychecks or committing fraud by taking money from the company account that is there to pay for a customer parts? And that is the massive issue with this case. The issue is that the lower court and even the appeals court have simply ignored the SCOTX guidelines for determining ability to afford costs. This lower court and the 9th Court of Appeals determination to ignore necessary expenses violates due process and the Constitution because true ability to afford costs to access the courts cannot be determined without having examined both income AND expenses. What is the point of this SCOTX creating ruled for examining ability to afford costs to allow for access to justice if the lower courts and the appeals court can simply ignore these guidelines and declare someone able to pay costs without having ever determined expenses and ability to actually use income. This is an issue that is widespread and greatly impacts other Texans and deprives many other people of the ability to access courts if there are no enforceable standards of determining indigency and examining expenses before making a determination about ability to afford costs. In fact, this Supreme Court of Texas has a different case, a habeas corpus case, before it right now involving a young father Joshua Jaros who was jailed without having a right to be represented by an attorney. That case before the SCOTX is cause 19-1101 and this court has yet to rule on that case. In that case, Joshua declared his inability to afford an attorney and the trial court denied him a court appointed attorney without having considered his expenses and ability to afford an attorney. The 9th Court of Appeals was again the appeals court in this case and the 9th Court of appeals declared that expenses and actual ability to afford costs don’t ever have to be considered. Interestingly though, the 9th Court of appeals, in their upholding that the trial court did not need to examine expenses for determining indigency for a court ordered attorney, specifically acknowledged caselaw regarding the need to examine expenses for ability to pay court costs. The 9th court of appeals has contradicted themselves by denying the need to examine expenses in my inability to afford court costs, while acknowledging in Joshua’s case that expenses do need to be considered for court costs and ability to afford them. Clearly there is a pattern of different people being denied due process and being denied constitutional rights due to Texas trial courts and specifically the 9th Court of appeals determining and upholding this flawed notion that it is ok to determine that someone can pay for court costs or for an attorney and can be denied these rights to access justice and rights to a court appointed attorney by simply declaring they can pay without ever having actually examined their ability to afford and without ever having considered expenses and obligations. The SCOTX must take up this issue and provide clarification and enforcement of guidelines for determining ability to afford and access to justice, instead of the lower courts and the appeals court having different and even contradictory guidelines to determine ability to afford which allows for ignoring expenses and violated due process.

Prayer

I pray that this honorable Supreme Court of Texas reconsider their denial to take up my petition for review of the above referenced case. I pray this court takes up my petition for review due to the important and far reaching issues and implications of the underlying case regarding life and access to justice and guidelines for inability to afford determinations

Texas Supreme Court to Decide if an Unborn Baby Should get Medical Care Before Paying Court Costs, and if a New Pregnancy is a Change in Circumstances re: Access to Justice

Texas Supreme Court to Decide if an Unborn Baby Should get Medical Care Before Paying Court Costs, and if a New Pregnancy is a Change in Circumstances re: Access to Justice

click here for story on Texas GOP Vote: https://www.texasgopvote.com/family/texas-supreme-court-decide-if-unborn-baby-should-get-medical-care-paying-court-0012162

by David Bellow

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The Supreme Court of Texas has a case before them right now, Case 19-0325, which if they deny the petition, the Texas Supreme Court will have effectively agreed or let stand a ruling by the Texas Ninth Court of Appeals that a pregnancy is NOT a change in financial circumstances. Even worse, if the Texas Supreme Court denies this case, then it will be agreeing or letting stand an absurd determination that the health and health expenses of an unborn baby are not important nor necessary, and that the courts should require unborn babies to be denied medical care so that court costs can first be paid in order to access the justice system and file an appeal. It would also muddy the waters regarding access to justice and standards for inability to afford costs that the SCOTX has pushed to try to clear up in recent years.

This case before the SCOTX is very important for multiple reasons. The first reason is pretty obvious. It is absolutely absurd that an appeals court in Texas has determined that a pregnancy is not a material or substantial change, and that medical expenses during a pregnancy are NOT IMPORTANT and instead the courts should get their access to justice fees paid first before the medical needs of an unborn child can be paid for or risk being denied equal access to courts and justice.

The second reason this case is important is because it involves access to Justice. The Supreme Court of Texas has spent considerable time and effort in recent years taking a stand and fighting FOR access to justice, which is a fundamental constitutional right. Particularly, the SCOTX has created rules and developed case law through rulings aimed at forcing courts to allow people the right and opportunity to access courts and access justice even if they are unable to afford court costs. This is a big shift, as previously the standard was ability to pay, not ability to afford. The SCOTX realized that just because someone has $10 in their account that doesn’t mean the $10 is available to spend on court costs if, for instance, food and housing needs to be paid first. Therefore, the standard shifted to ability to afford, which required courts to actually examine someone’s income AND expenses before determining if someone can actually afford court costs after necessary expenses. Unfortunately, many lower courts still haven’t come on board with the new rules regarding access to justice or they are simply openly defying the guidance from the SCOTX. This case is a prime example of complete disregard for access to justice and the standards for determining ability to afford that have been set forth by the SCOTX.

So, what exactly is this current case before the Supreme Court of Texas? Here is what happened. An appeal was made to the 9^th Court of Appeals in Beaumont, TX (Jefferson County). An affidavit of inability to pay court costs was included so that the appeal could move forward even though there was an inability to afford the thousands of dollars in court costs to file an appeal of the trial court ruling. The appeals court kicked the ability to afford decision to the trial court. The trial court, without ever examining or even considering necessary expenses, determined that there is an ability to afford the thousands in court costs. This determination was challenged in the appeals court because, based on the rules and caselaw and plain common sense, there cannot be a determination regarding ability to afford without having looked at expenses and making factual determinations regarding both income and expenses. Additionally, since the appeal was filed there was a new pregnancy with new unborn baby medical expenses that must be considered and paid first before court costs. The Ninth Court of Appeals then ruled that the trial court did not need to examine expenses or that the appeals court didn’t care if the trial court didn’t examine expenses before making a determination on ability to afford court costs. Additionally, the Ninth Court of Appeals rejected a motion regarding a change in financial circumstances due to a new pregnancy and went on to specifically state in their final order to pay court costs that there had not been any material change in circumstances presented that warranted review, which effectively declared a new pregnancy as not an important change to consider. Even worse, it deems unborn child medical expenses as not worth examining and the unborn child expenses should come second to paying court costs. The Ninth Court of Appeals then went on to dismiss the proceeding without ever reviewing the merits of the case due to the thousands of dollars in access to justice court fees not having been paid despite the courts never having actually reviewed ability to pay, and after having determined that court fees come first before necessary unborn baby health expenses.

So that is what leads us to this current case before the Supreme Court of Texas. This is a very important case that everyone should keep an eye on. If the Supreme Court of Texas does not take up this case, then the SCOTX will be effectively agreeing and allowing to stand the lower court and appeals court’s absurd and vague determinations regarding everything from pregnancy necessary expenses to access to justice rights. A denial of this petition for review would be completely contrary to the recent SCOTX push for access to justice, and would set the cause back by allowing lower courts to deny access to justice in spite of the SCOTX rules and constitutional rights. The Supreme Court of Texas has done a fabulous job of pushing for access to justice and we can only hope that the SCOTX will continue to push for access to justice by taking up this case to review the serious issues that undercut the SCOTX’s own rules and guidance on the issue.