Lead Opinion
OPINION
delivered the opinion of the Court in which
The trial court revoked the appellant’s community supervision because she failed to comply with a condition that required her either to obtain legal status to remain in this country within twelve months or else “leave the country and reside in a location where [she does] have a legally authorized status.” The appellant failed to object to this condition at the time it was imposed and, in fact, twice requested an extension of the time allotted for her to comply with it before the State filed its motion to revoke. The Texarkana Court of Appeals nevertheless reversed the trial court’s revocation order, holding that the community supervision condition that she leave the country “could not be enforced” because it invaded the prerogative of the federal government to decide whether to remove illegal immigrants from the United States.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL POSTURE
In the Trial Court
The appellant was indicted for the offense of possession of cocaine in an amount greater than four and less than 200 grams, a second degree felony.
also going to order that you file for your appropriate legal status through the Department of Homeland Security, or whichever federal agency that is in charge of that these days. And that you do that within 90 days of this date and that you provide notice to your probation officer in proof of that, that you have in fact followed up and done that. You can’t control how fast they act on their processing that application, but you can promptly get it filed.
The trial court also informed the appellant that she would receive a written copy of the terms and conditions of her community supervision before she left the courtroom. The record does in fact contain a written memorialization of the above condition, signed by both the appellant and the judge on the same day as the sentencing hearing, May 12th. In addition, the written terms and conditions informed the appellant: “At the end of twelve (12) months from the date probation begins, if you have not obtained legal status from the [United States Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement] for being within Smith County, Texas, you must leave the country and reside in a location where you do have a legally authorized status.” Although these conditions were not, for all the record reveals, an integral part of the plea agreement by the parties, the appellant voiced no objection to them.
Over the course of the next six years, at the appellant’s request, the trial court twice extended the allotted period of time that it had originally granted the appellant to “obtain legal status” — first until May 12, 2007 (three years to the day after the condition was originally imposed), and then again until May 12, 2010 (three years after the expiration of the first extension). On July 19, 2010, the State filed a motion to revoke the appellant’s community supervision. As grounds for revocation, the State alleged that, as of May 12, 2010, the appellant had neither (1) provided proof to her probation officer that she had applied for legal status, nor (2) left the country. No other basis for revocation was alleged. The trial court conducted a hearing on the State’s motion to revoke on December 1, 2010. At the outset of the hearing, the State abandoned the first alleged basis for
In the Court of Appeals
For the first time on appeal, the appellant complained that the trial court erred in revoking her community supervision on the basis of a violation of the condition that she leave the country should she fail to timely obtain legal status. On the authority of this Court’s opinion in Hernandez v. State,
Ruling in the appellant’s favor, the court of appeals declared that “we do not believe that Speth and Hernandez are mutually exclusive.”
According to Speth, [one] can contract for, and be bound by, unconstitutional conditions of community supervision, such conditions being described by the court as a “defect.” Failure to object results in waiver of the defect. But Hernandez says the trial court had no power to do what it did. According to Hernandez, the unlawful condition, one the court had no authority to employ, was void and thus could not be enforced. The condition is not merely unreasonable, and it does not merely violate a constitutional right of the defendant. It violates the exclusive authority ■ of the United States of America to absolutely control immigration to, and banishment from, the United States. The condition itself violated the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution. 10
The court of appeals therefore reversed the trial court’s order revoking the appellant’s community supervision, concluding that “the condition is void, and that the revocation, premised solely on [the appellant’s] violation of that condition, cannot stand.”
On Discretionary Review
In its brief on discretionary review, the State now challenges the court of appeals’s holding on what amounts to two grounds. First, the State argues, the court of appeals’s purported distinction between Speth and Hernandez is invalid. Speth reiterated that probation is essentially a contractual relationship between the court and the defendant, “and conditions thereof are terms of the contract entered into between the trial court and the defendant.”
Second, and in any event, the State continues, the appellant should be estopped from complaining of the unauthorized condition on appeal. Because community supervision is a contractual relationship, a prospective probationer may agree to
ANALYSIS
Hernandez v. State: Deportation and Banishment
In Hernandez, the appellant’s felony probation was revoked for a violation of the condition that he remain in Mexico and “not re-enter the U.S.A. legally or illegally without prior written permission of’ the trial court.
If Hernandez made any objection to the invalid conditions of probation at the trial court level, our opinions on original submission and rehearing in Hernandez failed to mention it. Hernandez preceded Marin by a dozen years. It is therefore understandable that we made no explicit determination whether a complaint about purported state action that is preempted by federal law under the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution may be forfeited by inaction, may be expressly waived, or instead implicates a systemic requirement or prohibition, not optional with the parties, that may be vindicated on appeal even absent a trial objection or in the face of an express waiver.
In a concurring opinion on rehearing in Hernandez, Judge Roberts asserted that the conditions of probation also violated Article I, Section 20, of the Texas Constitution.
Speth v. State: Procedural Default?
Speth was convicted of the offense of aggravated assault of a peace officer and placed on deferred-adjudication probation.
In its petition for discretionary review, the State argued that Speth had procedurally defaulted his complaints for appellate purposes by failing to assert them in the trial court.
We are not inclined to read Speth so categorically as to hold that a defendant may not complain for the first time on appeal of a condition of probation which violates an absolute prohibition as envisioned by Marin. This is not to say that a defendant will not forfeit many, if not most, appellate complaints — even most constitutional complaints — about particular conditions of community supervision by failing to object at trial, or that he will not effectively waive any constitutional or statutory waiver-only right that might be violated by a condition of community supervision he has agreed to follow in his contractual relationship with the trial court.
That is implicitly what we held the condition of probation in Hernandez to be — so antithetical to the aims of the justice system as a whole as to be intolerable, and therefore, not subject to agreement by the parties. The trial court in this case clearly lacked the authority to order the appellant to leave the country in derogation of the federal preemption over matters involving deportation.
Rhodes v. State: Estoppel?
Even if Hernandez identified an absolute prohibition within the rubric of Marin, the State argues, it should make no difference to our disposition of the appellant’s case. The basis for this argument derives from this Court’s recognition, in Saldano v. State, that under some circumstances, the doctrine of estoppel can trump even Marin’s category of non-forfeita-ble/non-waivable absolute requirements or prohibitions.
We do not think that either es-toppel doctrine is applicable here. With respect to estoppel by contract, that doctrine does not apply when the relevant terms of the contract are unenforceable on grounds of public policy.
An important exception to the rule [of estoppel by contract] that is usually recognized is that, where the contract is void as against public policy or against an express mandate of the law, a person who has accepted a benefit thereunder will not be estopped from defending against the contract when it is sought to be enforced against him or her.45
Looking to the Restatement (Second) of Contracts, in State v. Williams, this Court acknowledged that “[e]nforcement of some contracts may be precluded on the ground of public policy.”
(1) A promise or other term of an agreement is unenforceable on grounds of public policy if legislation provides that it is unenforceable or the interest in its enforcement is clearly outweighed in the circumstances by a public policy against the enforcement of such terms.
(2) In weighing the interest in the enforcement of a term, account is taken of
(a) the parties’ justified expectations,
(b) any forfeiture that would result if enforcement were denied, and
(c) any special public interest in the enforcement of the particular term.
(3) In weighing a public policy against enforcement of a term, account is taken of
(a) the strength of that policy as manifested by legislation or judicial decisions,
(b) the likelihood that a refusal to enforce the term will further that policy,
(c) the seriousness of any misconduct involved and the extent to which it was deliberate, and
(d) the directness of the connection between that misconduct and the term.47
Applying these criteria, it is apparent to us that any agreement that the appellant may have reached with the trial court with respect to her deportation was unenforceable, and therefore not subject to estoppel by contract.
Considering first the factors that might favor enforcement, we perceive no justifiable expectations of enforcement by either the State or the trial court, no forfeiture that either the State or the trial court would suffer on account of the failure to enforce it, and no special public interest to be served by its enforcement. By contrast, at least three of the four criteria militating against enforcement are clearly present. The strength of the policy against enforcement is profound, deriving as it does both from an overriding federal constitutional interest in maintaining centralized control over all matters involving deportation and an unequivocal state constitutional prohibition against banishment as an acceptable response to crime.
As for estoppel by judgment, in addition to the above public-policy considerations, we note that appellate courts in Texas have consistently held that, before that doctrine may apply, an appellant’s acceptance of the benefits of the judgment must be voluntary.
CONCLUSION
For these reasons, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.
COCHRAN, J., filed a concurring opinion in which JOHNSON, J., joined.
KELLER, P.J., concurred in the result.
Notes
. Gutierrez v. State,
. Tex.R.App. P. 66.3(a), (b) & (c). At least one other court of appeals has held, albeit in an unpublished opinion, that a defendant’s failure to object to a condition of community supervision that he must remain in Honduras, his native country, for the duration of his probationary period constituted a forfeiture of any appellate complaint to revocation based upon a violation of that condition. Garcia v. State, No. 08-03-00296-CR,
. Tex. Health & Safety Code §§ 481.102(3)(D) & 481.115(d).
.
. U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2 ("This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof ... shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”).
.
. We did not explicitly say so in Speth itself, but we did observe that, in the cases upon which Speth relied, the appellants were permitted to raise the issue of unauthorized sentences for the first time on appeal, and it was these cases that we distinguished. Speth, supra, at 531-32. See also Speth v. State,
. Hernandez, supra, at 290.
. Gutierrez, supra, at 6.
. Id. at 7.
. Id.
. Speth II, supra, at 534. See also McDonald v. State,
. Id.
.
Thus, our system may be thought to contain rules of three distinct kinds: (1) absolute requirements and prohibitions; (2) rights of litigants which must be implemented by the system unless expressly waived; and (3) rights of litigants which are to be implemented upon request. In the present context, the most important thing to remember about the Texas law of procedural default is that it only applies to the last category.
Id.
. Speth II, supra, at 534.
. See
. Hernandez, supra, at 288 (opinion on original submission).
. Id. at 289 (opinion on State's motion for reh'g).
. Id. at 290. For this proposition we relied principally upon Takahashi v. Fish & Game Comm’n,
. Arizona v. United States,-U.S.-,
. See Marin, supra, at 278-79 (distinguishing appellate claims that are forfeitable, waiver-only, and those which are "not optional and cannot, therefore, be waived or forfeited by the parties”).
. Hernandez, supra, at 290 (Roberts, J., concurring).
. See Tex. Const, art. I, § 20 ("No person shall be transported out of the State for any offense committed within the same.”).
. Reza v. State,
. See note 7, ante.
. Speth I, supra, at 14; Speth II, supra, at 531.
. Speth I, supra, at 14; Speth II, supra, at 531.
. Speth I, supra, at 14-15; Speth II, supra, at 531.
. Speth I, supra, at 15; Speth II, supra, at 531 n. 1.
. Speth II, supra, at 531.
. Speth I, supra, at 18; Speth II, supra, at 531.
. Speth II, supra, at 531.
. Id. Speth had cited: Heath v. State,
. Speth II, supra, at 532.
. Id.
. Id. at 532-33 & n. 5.
. Id. at 533 (citing Tex.Code Crim. Proc. art. 42.12, § 11(a)).
. See Id. at 534 ("Because Section 11 [of Article 42.12] is so broadly discretionary, it does not establish a narrowly identifiable 'universe of punishments applicable to the offense' in the same manner as the statutory sentencing schemes at issue” in the line of cases that Speth invoked) (quoting Ex parte Johnson, supra, at 607).
. See, e.g., Belt v. State,
. Relying upon our opinion in Ex parte Medellin,
In any event, Medellin itself is inapposite. Medellin claimed that for Texas to apply its statutory abuse-of-the-writ doctrine to prevent him from claiming, for the first time in a successive post-conviction application for writ of habeas corpus, that his rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations had been violated would itself violate the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) construction of that treaty — a construction that he argued was binding on Texas by virtue of the Supremacy Clause. Medellin, supra, at 330. Following the lead of the United States Supreme Court, however, we held that the ICJ's construction of the treaty was not binding on the United States, and that the Supreme Court’s own construction of the Vienna Convention would allow a signatory state to apply its doctrines of procedural default in assessing the validity of a claimed violation of consular rights under the terms of the treaty. Id. at 332 (citing Sanchez-Llamas v. Oregon,
.
. Rhodes, supra, at 891.
. Id.
. Id. at 892.
. 31 C.J.S. Estoppel and Waiver § 164, at 544 (2008).
. State v. Williams,
. Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 178 (1981).
. Under Section 178, subsection 3(a), “ 'legislation' is used ... in the broadest sense to include any fixed text enacted by a body with authority to promulgate rules, including not only statutes, but constitutions...." See id.., Comment (a).
. The general rule in Texas, "based on the principle of estoppel[,J” is that if an appellant “has voluntarily accepted the benefits of a judgment, he cannot afterward prosecute an appeal therefrom.” Carle v. Carle,
. Speth II, supra, at 536 (Womack, J., concurring) (citing Roberson v. State,
Concurrence Opinion
OPINION
filed a concurring opinion in which JOHNSON, J., joined.
I agree with the majority that applicant’s probation cannot be revoked on the basis of an illegal
I also think that the issue could have been resolved in a simpler manner. Appellant’s community supervision cannot be revoked for failing to obtain legal status to remain in this country within a certain time period because obtaining legal status is beyond her power to control. She can be ordered to file the appropriate papers to obtain legal status within a certain time frame; that act is within her control. The trial judge properly made that act a condition of probation. Applicant complied with that condition. The trial judge correctly told applicant at the time he placed her on community supervision, “You can’t control how fast [employees of the Department of Homeland Security] act on their processing that application, but you can promptly get it filed.” Appellant did everything she could to comply with the trial judge’s probation condition when she timely and properly filed her papers requesting legal status. She cannot be revoked for the failure of the Department of Homeland Security to act promptly.
The United States Supreme Court has held that it violates “fundamental fairness” under the Fourteenth Amendment to revoke a defendant’s probation for failure to pay a fine or restitution absent evidence that he was responsible for that failure— 1.e., he had the money to pay the fine, but willfully declined to do so.
Because appellant did everything she could to comply with her probation conditions, the trial judge could not properly revoke her probation based on her failure to “obtain” legal status within a year. With these comments, I join the majority opinion.
. Let us not mince words. The trial judge did not have the legal authority or power to impose deportation as a condition of probation. That was an illegal condition and, like an illegal sentence, may be raised at any time. See Hernandez v. State,
. Bearden v. Georgia,
. See, e.g., People v. Cervantes,
. Ex parte Capetillo, No. AP-75311,