The McAllen Municipal Court might become more transparent if a proposal to transition the court into a municipal court of record becomes a reality.
City commissioners are mulling a change to their court system after Municipal Judge Lauren Renee Sepulveda pitched the possibility of shifting into a municipal court of record, a model that would enable more transparency from the court and expand their jurisdiction.
“What a court of record would mean is, essentially, we would record all proceedings going on in the court and it would operate much more like a traditional county court-at-law or district court when it comes to recording the proceedings,” Sepulveda told the city commissioners during a workshop Monday.
“Litigants in the court would then have access to records of what happened during hearings and it would also change some of our jurisdictional issues,” she said.
As a municipal court of record, it would have more jurisdiction for criminal cases dealing with watersheds and streams, parks, lakes, speedways and boulevards, nuisances, dairy and slaughterhouses.
They’d also have concurrent jurisdiction with their current district and justice courts to expunge fine only offenses.
“What that means is that if someone gets a ticket here in the city of McAllen, currently, and they get that ticket dismissed, they’re eligible for an expunction,” Sepulveda said.
They would also have expanded jurisdiction when it comes to code enforcement such as issuing search warrants to investigate health and safety violations.
“(Law enforcement) cannot have that signed by our court currently,” Sepulveda said. “With a court of record, they would be able to have us sign that and that would allow them to go into businesses or to properties to investigate code enforcement violations.”
Under their current system, the municipal court can only sign warrants to abate such as to cut grass, to deal with bees, or to cut down trees, Sepulveda said.
A municipal court of record would also be able to sign a warrant for DNA from a suspect, to search a phone, or to confiscate documents that might be related to a criminal charge.
Currently, McAllen police have to go to a district court judge in Edinburg to have the warrant signed so the change would not only be more convenient but cost effective as it would reduce driving costs.
Another major change is that becoming a court of record would cut down on their appeals.
If someone wanted to appeal their jury trial that was held at the municipal court, they would file an appeal with the county courts-at-law which serves as the appellate court for the municipal court.
But since the McAllen municipal court currently doesn’t have a record, an appeal would lead to an entirely new trial at the county court-at-law level.
Testimony from an officer or a witness would have to be redone, Sepulveda said, because the municipal court didn’t keep a record of any of that.
However, as a municipal court of record, people can only appeal for legal issues just like they have to do now when appealing a case out of district courts and county courts.
The downsides to becoming a municipal court of record is that it requires the purchase of a recording system and all judges must be licensed attorneys in the state of Texas.
Fortunately for McAllen, the city already has a recording system in place that was included in upgrades the city did last year and all five of the city’s municipal judges are licensed attorneys.
Sepulveda added that they might have to hire additional staff in the future but they’re not anticipating having to hire new people within the next year.
If the city commission does agree to transition the court into a municipal court at law, they would be the first major city in the Rio Grande Valley to do so and the third, overall, behind Palmhurst and Palmview.
