PD-0201-15
Darius D. Briggs #1856005
9601 Spur 591
Amarillo, Texas 79107-9606
March 27, 2015
FILED \H
Clerk of the Court COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals APR 17 2015
P.O. Box 12308/ Capitol Station
Austin, Texas 78711-2308 Abel Acosta, Clerk
Re: Briggs v. State
PD-0201-15
Dear Clerk:
Please find enclosed a copy of my motion for enlargement of
time and my motion for rehearing. Please file them amongst the
papers of the cause and bring them to the attention of the Court.
I am enclosing an additional copy of this cover letter for
file stamping to verify receipt and presentation. Please return
it to me in the postpaid envelope provided.
Thank you for your time and help.
Sincerely,
^) ^ K ^ ^%^
Darius D. Briggs
cc: Nathaniel Munier
State Prosecuting Attorney
file
RECEIVED II 0
C0UWOFCfilMlNW.«PPEMS
APR 07 2011
Ab®« Acosta, Clerk
Darius D. Briggs #1856005
9601 Spur 591
Amarillo, Texas 79107-9606
March_£Z, 2015
Clerk of the Court
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
P.O. Box 12308/ Capitol Station
Austin, Texas 78711-2308
Re: Briggs v. State
PD-0201-15
Dear Clerk:
Please find enclosed a copy of my motion for enlargement of
time and my motion for rehearing. Please file them amongst the
papers of the cause and bring them to the attention of the Court,
I am enclosing an additional copy of this cover letter for
file stamping to verify receipt and presentation. Please return
it to me in the postpaid envelope provided.
Thank you for your time and help.
Sincerely/
Darius D. Briggs
cc: Nathaniel Munier
State Prosecuting Attorney
file
NO. - Pn-0201-15 .
IN THE
COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS
AUSTIN, TEXAS
DARIUS D. BRIGGS
V.
THE STATE OF TEXAS
From Appeal No. 01-13-00291-CR
Trial Cause No. 12-04-03646-CR
Montgomery County
PETITIONER'S MOTION FOR THE ENLARGEMENT OF TIME
TO FILE HIS MOTION FOR REHEARING
TO THE HONORABLE JUDGES OF THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS:
COMES NOW/ Darius Briggs, Petitioner pro se, and moves this
Honorable Court for an extension of time in which to file his
pro se motion for a rehearing of the Court's February 26, 2015
denial of Petitioner's motion for an extension of time to file
a Petition For Discretionary Review. In support thereof, would
show the following:
On February 26, 2015, the Court denied Petitioner's pro se
attempt at obtaining extra time to file a PDR. The first
Petitioner heard.of the decision was when he received the
postcard sent to him by the Clerk. That postcard was not
postmarked until March 4, 2015, and Petitioner received it from
the prison officials until March 10 , 2015. Petitioner
understands that L". the Rules, 10.5 and 79.1, require that he file
this motion within 15 days of the Court's order. In this case
Mf-ch
that would be F-obcuary 13, 2015. Petitioner has virtually no
legal knowledge and has had to find another offender to help him
in drafting this motion and in presenting his appellate claims
(if the Court will allow such). Petitioner explains that
impediment further in his Motion for Rehearing which he is
providing the Court along with this motion. Petitioner, therefore,
is asking the Court for an extension of only •-- -14".-"'. days as he
is submitting these pleadings to the prison officials for mailing
on March 27, 2015.
Petitioner has now been informed of the importance of his
timely compliance with the Court's rules and.of the limited
nature of a PDR review. Petitioner sincerely believes that he
does have an argument worthy of the Court's limited time and
prays the Court make provision for him to be able to present
his argument(s) taking into consideration the impediments that
have affected his ability to do so thus far.
WHEREFORE, PREMISES CONSIDERED, Petitioner prays the
Honorable Court grant this motion and allow the filing of the
accompanying Motion For Rehearing.
Respectfully submitted,
^ tfsvoou. AH0L
2 -
Darius D. Briggs #1856005
9601 Spur 591
Amarillo, Texas 79107-9606
UNSWORN DECLARATION
I, Darius Briggs, being presently imprisoned in Potter
County, Texas, and under penalty of perjury, do hereby affirm
that the foregoing facts are true and correct.
Executed on this the 2 1 7^ day of jAltf /?C^ , 2015.
3^ JUtsOU*- /Istt&aA
Petitioner/Affian
- 3 -
NO. PD-0201-15
IN THE
COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS
AUSTIN, TEXAS
DARIUS D. BRIGGS
v.
THE STATE OF TEXAS
From Appeal No. 01-13-00291-CR
Trial Cause No. 12-04-03646-CR
Montgomery County
PETITIONER'S MOTION FOR A REHEARING AND/OR
A RECONSIDERATION OF THE FEBRUARY 26/, 2015 ORDER
TO THE HONORABLE JUDGES OF THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS:
COMES NOW, Petitioner Darius Briggs, pro se, and pursuant
to Rule 79.2 of the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure, and moves
the Court for a rehearing and/or reconsideration of its February
26, 2015 denial of an extension to file his Petition for
Discretionary Review. The Clerk notified Briggs of the order by
postcard, resulting in his having no idea why the Court denied
his extension request. Briggs, in this motion, seeks to
justify his valid need for that extension and to obtain the
Court's permission for it. In support thereof, would show the
following:
Briggs was convicted in the 435th District Court of
Montgomery County, Texas, of the offense of violating a rule/
condition imposed upon him as part ot his being civilly committed
as a Sexually Violent Predator ("SVP"). That conviction occurred
in Cause No. 12-04-03646-CR with Briggs being assessed a- LIFE
sentence. Briggs appealed to the Court of Appeals for the First
Supreme Judicial District. The case was affirmed on December
•J-8 .. , 2014. As best Briggs can calculate, his PDR was due on
or before .January ",, -. 17 ,, 2015. Briggs, because of the
impediments/limitations addressed below, was unable to file his
motion for an extension of time vmM r . Pshrnary . _j_3 , 2015.
On February 26, 2015, the Court denied that motion.
II
While the Court is well aware of the normal impediments
Texas prisoners face when filing PDR's, Briggs would inform the
Court that he faced a number of others, unique to his individual
situation. First, and foremost, Briggs is not only a convicted
sex offender, but he has been labeled by the State as being a
SVP as well. Unlike the average Texas prisoner (if there is
such a thing), Briggs can not just go up to some other offender
and ask him for help on his appeal. In doing so he is, in all
- 2 -
Briggs is determining the filing dates based upon the prison mailbox
rule holding the filing occurrs when he turns it over to the prison officials
for mailing.
actuality, risking nis life by doing so. It is common knowledge
that sex offenders are a disfavored class of offenders, even in
prison. As such, Briggs has had to be extremely careful in
trying to find someone who could help him in his appeallate
efforts, someone whom he also could trust not to broadcast the
nature of his criminal history and conviction to the prison
population. That was a difficult and time consuming step of
faith for him to take.
Briggs also finds nimseif confined on a unit where the law
library staff seem to believe it is their duty to impede offender
access to that library's holdings and the information contained
therein. Briggs has been subject to the prison disciplinary
process and punishment because the offender he found to help him
simply handed him back his attorney correspondence while they
were in theolaw library working on this case (A "trafficking and
trading" offense), something that would not have occurred on any
other TDCJ unit. Because of the law library•staff's treatment,
Briggs has been pretty well limited to meeting with the offender
helpinghim only once per week.
Handling as many pro se prisoner fiimgs as it does, the
Court is surely aware that in 2009 the state's prison officials
ceased providing new volumes of Texas Southwestern 3rd, Federal
Supplement 2d, Federal Reporter 3d, and Supreme Court Reporters,
along with their pocket parts. In 2012, the agency ceased
providing any new volumes of West's Texas Digest 2d, or its
pocket parts. In that same time period/ those officials removed
ail the Shepard's Citations from the prison law libraries as
well. Those officials do not provide trained legal assistance
to tnose they are imprisoning.
The only way $riggs can now obtain access to current case
law, Shepard's citations/ and/or current updates to the Digest/
is to submit the correct citation (a limit of three per law
library session) to the prison officials and they obtain them
off a computer which is' located in the law library. The official
then provides them to the offender/ at a subsequent session, for
the offender to read and return to them that session.
However, the computer's printer at Briggs assigned prison
unit has purportedly been inoperable since mid-January 2015.
All of these impediments have each contributed to Brigqs
inability to present his PDR in a more prompt manner. He assures
the Court that his delay in no way has been an attempt to delay
the process or qain some sort of unfair advantage. He simply
did not know how to do what he needed to do.
Ill
Briggs would also show the Court that there are a number of
factors which show the Court mighc want, and even need, to
address his conviction and appeal; which it is unable to do if
he is not permitted to even present it for the Court's review.
As the Court is probably aware, the news media has been
reporting on the mismanagement of the Office of Violent Sex
Offender Management ("OVSOM"), and of formal investigations of
possible malfeasance7 by OVSOM's officials. See http://www.
chron.com/default/articie/Pei-ry-replaces-board-chair-at-sex-
- 4 -
offender-agency-5429 705.php and http://www.houstonchronicie.com/
news/politics/texas/articie/Company-demands^Texas-remove-sex-
offenders-from-5594185.php. Those reports verify that the entire
OVSOM senior staff have all .resigned under a number of malfeasance
investigations, and that the state's legislature is going to make
a number of changes in the OVSOM this session. Id. The OVSOM is
the entity that was supervising Briggs commitment and who brought
the^criminai accusations against him.
Briggs was tried in the 435th District Court of Montgomer
County, Judge Michael T. Seiler presiding. jiiilge Seiler is also
the judge who appointed/choose Briggs appellate counsel. The
Houston Chronicle and Conroe Courier *ce reporting that as many
as eleven individuals, before Judge Seiler for civil commitment
related matters/ have obtained his recusal for his personal bias.
See Houston Chronicle Vol. 114, No. 86 pp. Al and Al-2; http://
www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/
Judge-in-controversial-sex-offender-program-under-5986273.php#/0;
http://www.yourhDustonnews.com/courier/news/montgomery-county-
district-court-judge-a I-;missed-f rom- three-additional-civil/
article 8c478ce2-f6b7-5b8d-bl51-...; and http://www.yourhouston
news. com/courier/news/montgomef.-y-county-district-court- judge-s-
recusal-granted-in-civil/article c0ba8c94-ee4e-5284-bl6d-04dc4d
99a The papers report that Judge Seller's 2008 and 2012
campaigns involved him describing himself as a "prosecutor to
judqe the predators". Judge Seiler appeac^d before a 2011
meeting of the Montgomery County Republican women and was asked
a question about the effectiveness of castration at preventing
- 5 -
reoffending. The Conroe Courier quoted Judge Seiler. as stating
"The castration would have to kind of occur at neck level."
That meeting is to have occured on September 22, 2011. In March
of 2013, Judge Seiler appeared before a Woodlands-based Tea
Party group, Texas Patriots PAC, to explain his role in the
civil commitment proceedings and in criminal proceedings for
violation of civil commitments. Judge Seller called those who
appeared.before his court "psychopaths" who can't be treated
because they "like what they like". During a PowerPoint
presentation to the group, the judge compared those appearing in
his court to the fictional character, the cannibalistic serial
killer, Hannibal Lector. The judge suggested to the potential
donors that juries take so long deliberating cases in his court
because "they just want to make it look official". He went on to
suggest that if the.legislature would amend the Code to remove
the right to a jury trial., he could "get through all 35,000 sex
offenders (currently in Texas prisons) pretty quickly."
On September 4, 2014, Senior Judge Sharolyn Wood recused
Judge Seiler in the civil commitment violation case of Joseph
Calzada. On October 30, 2014, Judge Seiler was ordered off the
civil commitment case of James Richards. On December 11, 2014,
Judge Seiler was removed from from six cases by Senior Judge Ned
Dean for either reasonably questionable impartiality or a
personal bias against the subject matter or a party involved in
the respective cases. On January 6, 2015, visiting Judge Joseph
J. "Ted" Halbach, Jr. from the 333rd Civil Court in Houston,
removed Judge Seller from three more civil commitment related
- 6 -
cases. In the January 6th hearings the state did not contest
the need for the recusals.
Senator John Whitmire, who chairs the Senate Criminal
Justice Committee, which oversees the civil commitment program
and the state's criminal justice processes, confirmed that the
state Commission on Judicial Conduct has launched an investigation
into Judge Seller's actions. Senator Whitmire has been publicly
quoted as saying "By his own actions and comments, I think this
judge [Michael Seiler] has made himself nonfunctional in hearing
these cases" and "I think the judge has demonstrated he can't
handle, shouldn't handle these cases".
Judge Seiler, Briggs' trial judge, has made it clear that
he believed that Briggs was some sort of "psychopath" who like
all sex offenders/ needed to be castrated at the neck because he
is comperable to Hannibal Lector,- That belief being based upon
his personal, publicly stated/ prosecutorial bias.
CONCLUSION
These ongoing public accusations/ investigations/ and
impedimants facing Briggs should/ at the least/ raise some
concern as to whether Briggs could have obtained a fair trial
and appeal. The Court's preventing him from even presenting
his claims/ especially in these present circumstances, should
be reconsidered.
WHEREFORE, PREMISES CONSIDERED, and in light of the
foregoing, Petitioner Briggs prays this Honorable Court
- I -
reconsider its February 26, 2015 order denying him an extension
of time to file his PDR. Upon that reconsideration, Briggs
prays the Court grant him a reasonable extension* perhaps 30
days.
Respectfully submitted/
Darius D. Briggs #1856005
9601 Spur 591
Amarillo, Texas 79107-9606
UNSWORN DECLARATION
I, Darius Briggs, being presently imprisoned in Potter
County, Texas, and under penalty of perjury, do hereby affirm
that the foregoing facts are true and correct.
Executed on this the oj7 /X day of SV4 AcA. ., 2015
Petitioner/At" f iant
- 8 -
CERTIFICATE OF MAILING AND SERVICE
1/ Darius Briggs, being presently imprisoned in Potter
County/ Texas/ and under penalty of perjury, do hereby affirm
that I have delivered a copy of. Plaintiff's motion for
enlargement of time and Petitioner's motion for rehearing, to a
TDCJ official, first-class postage prepaid, for mailing to:
Clerk of the Court
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
P.O. Box 12308/ Capitol Station
Austin, Texas 78711-2308
Nathaniel Munier
207 w- Phillips Street
Conroe, Texas 77301
State Prosecuting Attorney
P.O. Box 12405, Capitol Station
Austin, Texas 78711-2405
on this the 2 1 /a day of S*7<£Z/C C^ / 2015.
Petitioner/Affiant