Article V, Section 19 of the Texas Constitution ("Jurisdiction of Justice Courts; Ex Officio Notaries Public")
As amended November 5, 1985:
Justice of the peace courts shall have original jurisdiction in criminal matters of misdemeanor cases punishable by fine only, exclusive jurisdiction in civil matters where the amount in controversy is two hundred dollars or less, and such other jurisdiction as may be provided by law. Justices of the peace shall be ex officio notaries public.
Editor Comments
As adopted in 1876, this section read: "Justices of the peace shall have jurisdiction in criminal matters of all cases where the penalty or fine to be imposed by law may not be more than for two hundred dollars, and in civil matters of all cases where the amount in controversy is two hundred dollars or less, exclusive of interest, of which exclusive original jurisdiction is not given to the District or County Courts; and such other jurisdiction, criminal and civil, as may be provided by law, under such regulations as may be prescribed by law; and appeals to the County Courts shall be allowed in all cases decided in Justices' Courts where the judgment is for more than twenty dollars exclusive of costs, and in all criminal cases; under such regulations as may be prescribed by law. And the justices of the peace shall be ex officio notaries public; and they shall hold their courts at such time and places as may be provided by law."
Justice courts are constitutional courts. Article V, Section 1 ("judicial power of this State shall be vested in . . . Courts of Justices of the Peace"). The legislature may neither abolish them nor reduce their constitutional jurisdiction. For example, the Texas Attorney General, in Tex. Att'y Gen. Op. DM-277 (1993), opined that: "The $500 limitation on the criminal jurisdiction of justice courts contained in article 4.11 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is void for violation of section 19 of article V of the Texas Constitution, which contains no maximum limit on that court's jurisdiction over fine-only misdemeanors. Article V, section 19, does not require legislative implementation; therefore, complaints under article 249a may be filed and tried in justice court."
Recent Decisions
None.
Historic Decisions
- Ex parte Morris, 325 S.W.2d 386, 388 (Tex.Crim.App. 1959) ("We reaffirm the holdings of this Court and its predecessors that justices of the peace are without jurisdiction to try a prosecution under a criminal statute authorizing a punishment by imprisonment in jail. Tuttle v. State, 1 Tex.[Ct.]App. 364; . . . We apply the same rule to forfeiture of the license of the defendant to hunt and of his right to hunt in this State for one year upon a finding by the court or jury, incorporated in the judgment, and hold that the Justice Court is without jurisdiction to try a prosecution under Art. 1377, P.C., the punishment provided in the statute for its violation not being limited to a fine of $200.")
- Reasonover v. Reasonover, 58 S.W.2d 817, 819 (Tex. 1933) ("[T]he provision of section 1, article 5, authorizing the Legislature to 'establish such other courts,' etc., was not intended to authorize the Legislature to deprive the regular district courts of any of the jurisdiction expressly conferred on them by the Constitution; nor that the jurisdiction of the district courts should be conformed to that of the statutory courts by destroying the constitutional jurisdiction of the district courts, or by transferring a part or all of it exclusively to a statutory court, but rather that such jurisdiction as fixed in the Constitution may be made concurrent with such other courts created by statute.")
- Cowan v. Nixon, 28 Tex. 230, 238-39 (1866) ("We have already laid it down as a principle of law, that courts established by written law cannot transcend the jurisdiction given by the law of their creation. This principle is supported by numerous authorities, and was applied in limiting the jurisdiction and powers of justices of the peace in several cases decided by our late supreme court. (See Aulanier v. Governor, 1 Tex. 664; Foster v. McAdams, 9 Tex. 544.) If we are to look only to statutes . . . . We know of no authority for the principle, that laws treating of superior courts apply also to inferior ones, at least as to jurisdiction, however true it may be as to matters of practice.")
- Foster v. McAdams, 9 Tex. 542, 544 (1853) (citation omitted) ("The question presented in this case is, can a justice of the peace go out of his own precinct and try and decide a civil suit? The justices of the peace are elected for a particular precinct by the qualified voters of such precinct, and it would seem to follow, as a matter of course, in the absence of any express authority of law to the contrary, that their jurisdiction is restricted and confined to the particular precinct for which and in which they had been elected by the qualified voters thereof. They can no more go out of their own precinct and try a civil suit than they could go out of their county and perform such judicial functions.")
Library Resources
- Vernon's Annotated Constitution of the State of Texas (this multi-volume and up-to-date resource is available at all law libraries and many municipal libraries)
- The Texas State Constitution: A Reference Guide (this one-volume resource is available at most law libraries and some municipal libraries)
- The Constitution of the State of Texas: An Annotated and Comparative Analysis (this two-volume resource is available at most law libraries and some municipal libraries)
Online Resources
- Constitution of the State of Texas (1876) (this resource is published and maintained by the University of Texas School of Law)
- Amendments to the Texas Constitution Since 1876 (this resource is published and regularly updated by the Legislative Council)
- Reports Analyzing Proposed Amendments (this resource is published and regularly updated by the Legislative Reference Library)