Ex Parte Terry Lynn Spies

Concurring memorandum opinion issued April 12, 2016
In The
Court of Appeals
For The
First District of Texas
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NO. 01-14-00925-CR
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EX PARTE TERRY LYNN SPIES, Appellant
On Appeal from the 337th District Court
Harris County, Texas
Trial Court Case No. 1343443-A
CONCURRING MEMORANDUM OPINION
I join the court’s holding that Terry Lynn Spies failed to preserve error on any
legal argument that section 33.021(c) of the Texas Penal Code is unconstitutional as
applied to him. Not only did Spies fail to present any substantive legal argument to
the trial court, he also failed to present an adequate brief including a legal argument
to this court. See TEX. R. APP. P. 33.1, 38.1(i).
For precisely that reason, I would not go further to address the merits of the
constitutionality of section 33.021(c) by attempting to distinguish it from section
33.021(b) and the holdings in Ex parte Lo, 424 S.W.3d 10 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013),
and Ex parte Chance, 439 S.W.3d 918 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014) (mem.). See
VanDevender v. Woods, 222 S.W.3d 430, 433 (Tex. 2007) (noting “the cardinal
principle of judicial restraint—if it is not necessary to decide more, it is necessary
not to decide more”).
Michael Massengale
Justice
Panel consists of Justices Keyes, Massengale, and Lloyd.
Do not publish. TEX. R. APP. P. 47.2(b).
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