Hill, Michael Charles

In the Court of Criminal
Appeals of Texas
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No. WR-83,074-06
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EX PARTE MICHAEL CHARLES HILL,
Applicant

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On Application for a Writ of Habeas Corpus
Cause No. W-9334824-A in the 195th District Court
From Dallas County
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YEARY, J., delivered the opinion for the Court in which SCHENCK,
P.J., and KEEL, FINLEY, and PARKER, JJ., joined. RICHARDSON, NEWELL,
WALKER, and MCCLURE, JJ., dissented.

In November of 2023—more than twenty-three years after his
felony theft conviction in this case became final—Applicant has filed
this, his first application for writ of habeas corpus that challenges the
revocation of his community supervision for this theft conviction. TEX.
CODE CRIM. PROC. art. 11.07. He claims that his plea of true in that
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revocation proceeding is invalid because it was part of a “package deal”
in which he also pled guilty to another offense, which plea has since been
invalidated as involuntary. See Ex parte Cox, 482 S.W.3d 112 (Tex.
Crim. App. 2016). Without reaching the merits of Applicant’s claim, we
will deny him relief under the equitable doctrine of laches. See Ex parte
Smith, 444 S.W.3d 661, 667 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014) (“A court of equity,
which is never active in granting relief against conscience or public
convenience, has always refused its aid to stale demands where a party
has slept upon his rights, and acquiesced for a great length of time.”)
(quoting Sullivan v. Portland & Kennebec R.R. Co., 94 U.S. 806, 811−12
(1876)); Ex parte Perez, 445 S.W.3d 719, 727 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014) (the
State’s interest in the finality of a twenty-three-year-old conviction,
when significant periods of time elapsed while the applicant took no
action to contest it, “weighs heavily against applicant’s request for
equitable relief”).
I. BACKGROUND
A. Dallas County Theft Conviction
Applicant was indicted in October of 1993 in Dallas County for
the offense of theft of property valued at between $750 and $20,000, a
third-degree felony at that time. Acts 1991, 72nd Leg., ch. 565, §1, p.
2003, eff. Sept. 1, 1991. The offense was committed on July 21, 1993. On
February 4, 1994 (thirty-one years ago), Applicant pled guilty to this
offense and received a six-year sentence, probated for six years. On
October 22, 1999, the State filed an amended motion to revoke that
community supervision, alleging, among other things, that Applicant
had committed the offense of aggravated sexual assault, also in Dallas
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County, on February 4, 1999. On May 5, 2000, the trial court revoked
Applicant’s community supervision for the theft conviction and
sentenced him to five years in the penitentiary. Applicant did not
appeal.
B. Dallas County Aggravated Sexual Assault Conviction
On the same day in 2000 that Applicant pled true to the State’s
motion to revoke his community supervision in this case, he also pled
guilty to the aggravated sexual assault offense that supported the
revocation of community supervision for his theft conviction. In separate
plea papers, Applicant entered both pleas (true and guilty) in exchange
for prosecutorial recommendations of five years confinement for each
offense, which sentences would run concurrently by law. As with the
theft conviction, Applicant did not appeal the aggravated sexual assault
conviction. And for the next thirteen years following the trial court’s
acceptance of these pleas, Applicant did absolutely nothing to challenge
either the theft conviction or the aggravated sexual assault conviction.
C. Hunt County Convictions
Then, in 2010, Applicant was indicted in Hunt County for two new
offenses: sexual assault of a child and indecency with a child. Applicant
was convicted by a jury for both offenses, and his 2000 Dallas County
aggravated sexual assault conviction was used for enhancement in both
cases as well. In each case, Applicant was sentenced to confinement for
life. Even then, he brought no challenge to the 2000 revocation of
community supervision in the Dallas County theft case—the subject of
the present writ application.
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II. PRIOR HABEAS APPLICATIONS
A. Dallas County Aggravated Sexual Assault Conviction
It was only after he was convicted of the two Hunt County
offenses, and assessed two life sentences, and after the convictions were
upheld on direct appeal in 2013, that Applicant began post-conviction
habeas corpus proceedings to challenge his 2000 Dallas County
aggravated sexual assault conviction. See Ex parte Hill, 632 S.W.3d 547,
551−52 (Tex. Crim. App. 2021) (describing the protracted timeline for
Applicant’s initial post-conviction challenge to the 2000 Dallas County
conviction for aggravated sexual assault). This Court eventually granted
Applicant relief from his 2000 Dallas County aggravated sexual assault
case. We did so in 2018. Ex parte Hill, No. WR-83,074-03, 2018 WL
2327177, at *1 (Tex. Crim. App. May 23, 2018) (not designated for
publication). That relief was predicated on an alleged Brady violation
that the Court said had rendered Applicant’s guilty plea involuntary.
See Hill, 632 S.W.3d at 553 (explaining the basis for the Court’s having
granted relief in 2018 on the 2000 Dallas County aggravated sexual
assault case).
B. Hunt County Convictions
Then, before the year 2018 was out, Applicant filed post-
conviction applications for writs of habeas corpus in Hunt County to
challenge his two convictions from there. He argued that the use of the
2000 Dallas County aggravated sexual assault conviction for
enhancement of punishment in the Hunt County cases had rendered the
sentences in those cases illegal. See id. at 550 (“Applicant now argues
that his enhanced life sentences are illegal and that he should be
resentenced.”). What he once again failed to do was to initiate any
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challenge to the 2000 revocation of his community supervision for the
Dallas County theft case.
In 2021, the Court granted Applicant partial habeas relief on his
applications challenging the Hunt County sexual assault of a child and
indecency with a child convictions. The Court ruled that these
convictions were illegally enhanced with the 2000 Dallas County
aggravated sexual assault conviction. Id. at 557. The Court then ordered
resentencing on only the Hunt County sexual assault of a child case. Id.
at 558.
As to the Hunt County indecency with a child conviction, the
Court concluded, based on Ex parte Parrott, 396 S.W.3d 531 (Tex. Crim.
App. 2013), that use of the 2000 Dallas County aggravated sexual
assault conviction for enhancement purposes had been harmless. Id. at
558−59. Why? Because Applicant had yet another prior felony conviction
that could have served to enhance the indecency with a child conviction,
namely, his Dallas County felony conviction for theft—for which his
community supervision had been revoked in 2000—that he now
challenges in this proceeding. Id. Only now—after this Court already
relied upon that Dallas County theft case to declare that the claimed
illegal enhancement of the Hunt County indecency with a child case was
harmless—has Applicant finally brought a challenge to his 2000 Dallas
County theft conviction.
III. THE CURRENT HABEAS CHALLENGE
A. Applicant Challenges the Dallas County Theft Conviction for
the First Time—Twenty-Three Years After the Fact
In October of 2023, twenty-three years after his community
supervision was revoked for his Dallas County felony theft offense,
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Applicant filed the present application for writ of habeas corpus to
challenge that conviction. He now argues that his plea of true in the
2000 revocation proceeding was part of a “package deal,” whereby he
also pled guilty to the aggravated sexual assault offense, receiving
concurrent five-year sentences for both. Because this Court set aside his
guilty plea for the aggravated sexual assault offense in 2018, he
contends, his plea of true to the State’s motion to revoke his community
supervision for the theft offense must also be set aside. Had he been
aware of the Brady issue in the aggravated sexual assault case, he
argues, it is unlikely that he would have plead true to the revocation
motion as part of a “package deal,” but would instead have held out for
a lesser sentence. His plea of true was therefore, he maintains,
involuntary. 1
Of course, by October of 2023, this argument had been available
to Applicant at least since May of 2018, when this Court accepted
Applicant’s claim that the Brady violation contaminated his guilty plea
in the contemporaneous Dallas County aggravated sexual assault case. 2
We see no reason, and Applicant offers none, why he had to wait until
after his post-conviction challenges to the Hunt County sentences had
run their course before he could begin to contest his 2000 community
supervision revocation for the theft offense based on this “package deal”

1 Applicant has cited the 2016 case from this Court, Ex parte Cox, 482

S.W.3d 112 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016), in support of his claim for relief on this
“package deal” theory. The State has made a substantial argument why Cox is
distinguishable. State’s Response at 10−11. Because of our disposition based
on laches, we need not engage in the merits of that debate today.

2 See Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963).
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argument. Even after the collateral consequence of that conviction (i.e.,
its use to render the illegal sentence in his Hunt County indecency with
a child conviction harmless, under Parrott) became manifest, Applicant
continued for more than five years to sleep on his rights.
B. Laches Bars Relief
In May of 1999—almost a full year before Applicant’s community
supervision in the instant theft case was revoked—this Court
affirmatively recognized that the doctrine of laches could apply in the
post-conviction application for writ of habeas corpus context. In Ex parte
Carrio, 992 S.W.2d 486, 488 (Tex. Crim. App. 1999), the Court declared
that “the doctrine of laches is a theory which we may, and should,
employ in our determination of whether to grant relief in any given
[Article] 11.07 case.” (emphasis added).
Later, in Ex parte Perez, 398 S.W.3d 206 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013),
the Court refused to adopt a presumption of prejudice to the State after
a specific period of delay. Id. at 210. In its place, however, the Court
adopted what it called a “sliding scale” standard for assessing prejudice
for purposes of laches. Id. at 217. “With respect to the degree of proof
required,” the Court announced, “the extent of the prejudice the State
must show bears an inverse relationship to the length of the applicant’s
delay.” Id. Thus, “the longer an applicant delays filing his application,
and particularly when an applicant delays filing for much more than five
years after conclusion of direct appeals, the less evidence the State must
put forth in order to demonstrate prejudice.” Id. at 217−18.
Applicant in this case waited twenty-three years from the time
the community supervision in his Dallas County theft case was revoked
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to challenge that revocation for the first time in post-conviction habeas
proceedings. He even waited more than five years to file that first writ
application after the present “package deal” rationale for challenging
the revocation became apparent, in 2018—after he had obtained post-
conviction habeas corpus relief in the Dallas County aggravated sexual
assault conviction. 3 Under these circumstances, we conclude that the
State’s burden of demonstrating prejudice on the sliding scale is
relatively low. See id. at 217.
On the present record, the question of whether Applicant’s pleas
of guilty and true in the Dallas County cases were part of a “package
deal” is hotly contested, and a definitive answer is not readily
ascertainable from the plea papers alone. To complicate matters,
Applicant’s attorney from his theft community supervision revocation
case, we are informed, died in 2021—three years after Applicant
obtained Brady-based relief in his Dallas County aggravated sexual
assault case in 2018. By waiting so long to challenge first the Dallas
County aggravated sexual assault conviction and now the Dallas County
theft revocation case, Applicant has made sure that a critical witness to
whether the pleas in those two proceedings constituted a “package deal”
is now unavailable. The State also observes, in its response to the
Applicant’s writ application, that the prosecutor has also died.

3 It might be argued that Applicant’s “package deal” claim in this case

did not become available to him until 2018, when this Court granted Brady-
based relief on his Dallas County aggravated sexual assault conviction. That
fails to take into account that Applicant delayed thirteen years—from 2000,
when his Dallas County aggravated sexual assault conviction became final,
until 2013, when he first challenged it in a post-conviction application for writ
of habeas corpus—to try to invalidate that conviction.
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These facts show that the State’s ability to contest Applicant’s
claim on habeas, has been compromised by the delay. See Carrio, 992
S.W.2d at 487−88 (suggesting that the prejudice that the State must
show is in its ability to respond to the applicant’s habeas claims). In
addition, it is far from certain that the State would now be capable of
marshalling the evidence necessary to support its motion to revoke
Applicant’s theft community supervision—twenty-three years after the
original revocation proceeding. See Perez, 398 S.W.3d at 215 (expanding
the concept of laches prejudice also to include consideration of “the
State’s ability to retry a defendant”). And even if it could successfully
secure the revocation of Applicant’s community supervision, the State
would not now be able to use that conviction again to enhance his
punishment for his Hunt County conviction for indecency with a child.
Put another way, an important consideration in the prejudice
analysis in this case is that unraveling Applicant’s theft conviction at
this late date could compromise the State’s hard-won judgment in his
Hunt County indecency with a child case. When Applicant last
challenged his Hunt County convictions, former Presiding Judge Keller
dissented to the Court’s decision to grant relief on one of those
convictions, contending that relief should be denied based on laches.
Presiding Judge Keller argued that the State was prejudiced by the
significant delay because, by waiting so long to challenge his 2000 Dallas
County conviction for aggravated sexual assault, Applicant had
prevented the State from being able to retry that case, obtain a new
conviction, and still use it to legally enhance the sentences in his later
Hunt County convictions. Hill, 632 S.W.3d at 560 (Keller, P.J.,
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concurring and dissenting); see also, id. at 567 n.13 (Yeary, J.,
concurring and dissenting). Applicant has now waited even longer—
more than five years longer—before challenging his 2000 community
supervision revocation in his Dallas County theft case. The same
complaint that Presiding Judge Keller raised in her 2021 dissent about
this kind of protracted and piecemeal post-conviction habeas litigation
applies with even greater force here.
Indeed, applying a laches bar in this case is also, at least
arguably, consistent with the majority’s stated reason for refusing to do
so in Hill. 632 S.W.3d at 553. Our 2021 opinion in Hill involved a
collateral attack on Applicant’s Hunt County convictions because they
relied upon Applicant’s Dallas County aggravated sexual assault
conviction for enhancement. There, the Court decided that it was too
late to argue that laches barred Applicant’s challenge to the use of the
Dallas County aggravated sexual assault conviction as an enhancement.
The Court observed that “[t]he appropriate time to apply laches because
of Applicant’s delay in challenging his [Dallas County aggravated sex
assault] enhancement conviction was before [the Court] reached the
merits [in that Dallas County case] and set it aside[.]” 632 S.W.3d at
553. And that is precisely what we do today when we invoke laches in
declining to reach the merits of Applicant’s “package-deal” claim in this
much-belated collateral attack on his Dallas County revocation-of-
community-supervision-for-theft case—we address the laches claim
before “reach[ing] the merits[,]” and before a challenge is brought to the
use of that conviction as an enhancement in other cases.
If the Court granted relief on the present challenge to Applicant’s
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Dallas County theft revocation case, Applicant would undoubtedly next
file yet another post-conviction writ application in the Hunt County
indecency with a child case. This time, he would no doubt argue that
his conviction in the Dallas County theft case should no longer render
the use of the 2000 Dallas County aggravated sexual assault conviction
(to enhance his sentence in the Hunt County indecency with a child case)
harmless under Parrott. Even just to entertain such a claim would
constitute yet another blow to the State’s legitimate interest in the
finality of its convictions, many years after the fact, without an adequate
justification for the delay, and with demonstrable prejudice to the State.
We will not do that.
Relief is denied.

DELIVERED: April 23, 2025
PUBLISH