The Sixth District Court of Appeals of Texas turns 100 Years Old

By Lynn LaRowe Texarkana Gazette A steady stream of area judges, attorneys, students and many others with an interest in the courts visited the second floor of the Bi-State Justice Center Wednesday to commemorate the 100th year of the Sixth District Court of Appeals of Texas headquartered in Texarkana. “Of all Texas state appeals courts, the intermediate, appellate courts are the final deciders of well above 90 percent of those cases,” said Sixth District Court of Appeals Chief Justice Josh R. Morriss III, who heads one of 14 such courts in Texas. “And those cases aren’t just cases but often the most important thing that’s ever happened to that person.” Challenging an opinion delivered by Morriss or one of the other two sitting justices in the Sixth District Court of Appeals means facing either the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals or the Texas Supreme Court. The Court of Criminal Appeals handles criminal cases while the Supreme Court deals with civil matters. The other two justices serving the Sixth in Texarkana are Justices Jack Carter and Bailey C. Moseley. Morriss has been with the court since 2002, Carter since 2003 and Moseley since January. The three justices, with the help of six staff attorneys, render decisions on roughly 400 cases from 19 counties annually. “The staff attorneys do the heavy legal lifting,” Morriss said. “The vast majority of opinions originate with them.” Without the research and legwork performed by those working for the justices, cases would proceed at a much slower pace. The cases that come to the Sixth are randomly assigned to one of the three justices. The rotation of assignments is necessary so that no one justice or staff attorney has a disproportionate influence over a particular area of law, Morriss said. Most cases are decided by a justice after a thorough review of the law and any other cases where a precedent may have been set. Some cases require the attorneys involved to appear before the three justices for oral arguments. “Oral arguments are usually only heard when we think it might help,” Morriss said. “The majority of lawyers filing appeals don’t ask for them.” Morriss says the distribution of the appeals courts throughout the state make them more accessible and create an opportunity to educate students and the public as to their functions. When oral arguments are deemed necessary on a case in a more distant county falling within the court’s jurisdiction, the justices have been known to take their show on the road. Morriss said hearing oral arguments recently at Paris Junior College allowed the public and those considering a future in the legal profession a taste of what the court does. Historically, the court handled appeals on only civil cases until its responsibilities were broadened in 1981 to also include criminal appeals. With the additional duties came a name change from Sixth District Court of Civil Appeals of Texas to its current one, the Sixth District Court of Appeals of Texas. The court was originally on the third floor of the old Texarkana, Texas, City Hall, which stood where the current one now does. With the construction of a new City Hall in 1924, the court moved to the fourth floor. In 1985, when the Bi-State Justice Center was completed, the court moved to its present home on the center’s second floor. More than half of the 24 justices who have served on the court were district judges first. Three former Texarkana justices became justices of the Texas Supreme Court. One former justice became a Texas Attorney General. Morriss’ grandfather, I.N. Williams, was also a justice of the Sixth Court of Civil Appeals of Texas. The court’s history is rich with strange and amusing anecdotes. An award-winning video created by students at Texas High School called “The Story of the Sixth” was played for student tours and at Wednesday’s open house. The video highlights some of the court’s more interesting characters. Among them was the story of Matt Davis, a former justice of the peace and state representative from Wood County. In the video, Davis is said to have written that he “... traded two frying-size chickens and a mess of turnip greens” for his first law book. “Davis died in office and, per his instructions, was buried in a pine box and wearing overalls,” according to the video script. Times have changed since then. Likely, one of a Texas Appeals Court Justice’s greatest feats is keeping up with not only civil and criminal law, but the changes the laws undergo periodically as they are tweaked and enacted by legislators. “The law is a function of society,” Morriss said. “And society changes.”