Opinion
No. 01-03-00226-CV.
Opinion issued March 12, 2003.
Original Proceeding on Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus.
Panel consists of Justices HEDGES, JENNINGS, and ALCALA.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Relator Jose C. Mendoza seeks habeas corpus relief. We deny relief.
On April 6, 2000, the trial court signed an order establishing the parent-child relationship between relator and five minor children. It ordered relator to make monthly child support payments of $715 to the children's mother, Amanda A. Lara, commencing May 1, 2000. The Attorney General filed a motion for enforcement of the trial court's child support order. Among other things, the trial court found relator in contempt for not making child support payments for the months of July through October 2000. As punishment for this contempt, the trial court sentenced relator to to 60 days confinement for each of the four violations, the sentences to run concurrently. Additionally, as a coercive contempt measure, the trial court ordered him committed to jail until he paid, "a substantial payment" on his child support arrearage. Relator was incarcerated on March 7, 2003.
Relator asserts that the contempt order is void because it is vague in as much as it only states that he must pay "a substantial payment" on his child support arrearage. He contends that the order does not inform him as to what he must do to secure his release.
Relator's complaint about the coercive contempt measure of the contempt order is premature. Relator makes no attack on the trial court's four, 60-day concurrent confinement, punitive contempt sentences. Until he satisfies the punitive contempt portion of the contempt order, the coercive contempt portion of the order is not ripe for challenge. See Ex parte Occhipenti, 796 S.W.2d 805, 810 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1990, orig. proceeding).
We deny habeas corpus relief.