State Ex Rel. Smith v. Blackwell

OPINION

ONION, Presiding Judge.

This writ of prohibition proceeding presents the question of the Legislature’s authority to enact legislation empowering district judges to resentence under a new law those individuals who were previously convicted of offenses involving marihuana under a prior law.

In this proceeding the relator, Honorable Robert O. Smith, District Attorney of Travis County, seeks to prevent the respondent, Honorable Thomas D. Blackwell, Judge of the 167th Judicial District Court, from acting upon a petition for resentenc-ing sought by Frank Demolli, an inmate of the Texas…