When I looked up the SCOTx order on the Harris County Immigrant Legal Defense Fund matter, I came across two rulings on another matter of great interest. That would be the matter of the criminal trial of former HPD Captain Mark Aguirre, for attacking and harassing an AC repairman in 2020 on the bizarre belief that the poor guy was toting around a pile of illegal ballots, and the civil trial against Aguirre and the guy behind that plot, Steven Hotze. I’ll quote from the second SCOTx opinion to bring you up to speed.
Relator Steven Hotze and Movant Mark Aguirre were indicted and charged with various crimes in Harris County in connection with an automobile collision. The State later dismissed the charges against Hotze, but the criminal proceedings against Aguirre remain pending. Separately, one of the individuals involved in the collision brought a civil suit against Hotze and Aguirre seeking recovery in connection with various tort claims. That civil suit remains pending in Harris County.
Hotze and Aguirre argue that they are entitled to a stay of the civil suit pending the resolution of the criminal dispute. They note that the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment provides that “[n]o person . . .shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” U.S. CONST. amend. V. In their view, they face a Hobson’s choice: if they testify in the civil suit, their testimony might be used against Aguirre in
his criminal proceeding. But if they decline to testify in the civil suit in order to avoid collateral consequences in the criminal proceeding, the civil jury may make an adverse inference. See TEX. R. EVID. 513(c). They
propose that we solve this dilemma by ordering the civil trial to be stayed until the criminal proceedings are resolved.[…]
Hotze’s position has changed since filing his mandamus petition in our Court. At the time he filed, he was a criminal defendant. That is no longer true: the indictment against him has been dismissed. Aguirre, by contrast, remains a criminal defendant, but he is not the relator. He has filed what he calls a “motion to join” Hotze’s petition. However, the record does not show that Aguirre made a predicate request for action by the respondent—here, the district court—which the right to mandamus relief generally requires. In re Coppola, 535 S.W.3d 506, 510 (Tex. 2017) (“Due to the extraordinary nature of the remedy, the right to mandamus relief generally requires a predicate request for action by the respondent, and the respondent’s erroneous refusal to act.”). Moreover, Aguirre cites no rule or case authorizing this motion. At a minimum, this unusual dynamic would complicate our review.
Second, it appears that Aguirre’s criminal proceeding will soon be underway. The parallel civil proceeding, by contrast, does not have a current trial setting, and it may continue to lag behind its criminal counterpart. As a result, it is far from clear that the dilemma that Hotze and Aguirre identify will come to pass. “Texas courts have no jurisdiction to render advisory opinions,” Bienati v. Cloister Holdings, LLC, 691 S.W.3d 493, 497 (Tex. 2024), which is why we demand a concrete injury of reasonable certainty, not a hypothetical concern, before we exercise our jurisdiction.
So the main thing we learn is that the criminal trial against Mark Aguirre – for a crime he is alleged to have committed in 2020, remember – is finally about ready to begin. You bet your behind I’ll be paying attention to that. We also learn that the civil trial is not as close to coming to a courtroom, but at least for now there ought not to be any further legal matters standing in its way. Once we get a verdict, or perhaps a late plea agreement, in the Aguirre case, it ought to be clear sailing for the civil case. And I can hardly wait.