Case ID: tex-crim_76/html/0254-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PRENDERGAST, Presiding Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

I. Vasquez v. The State.
    No. 3444.
    Decided February 24, 1915.
    1. —Murder—Transcript—Delay—Clerk’s Warrant.
    Where the record was not filed in this court until seven months and two days after the final judgment in the lower court, the whole record not containing as much as eighteen typewritten pages, the same was an unwarranted, delay, and the clerks of the lower courts are warned that if they persist in. violating the law in this way, it will be the duty of this court to impose the penalty of the law upon them for their neglect and failure.
    2. —Same—Ninety Days’ Limit—Transcript.
    Clerks of the lower courts are required to have the record in cases appealed to this court here within not less than the ninety days prescribed by law; otherwise, they will be made to suffer the consequences.
    3. —Same—Statements of Fact—Bill of Exceptions—Practice on Appeal.
    In the absence of a statement of facts and bills of exception, the questions, raised can not be reviewed.
    Appeal from the District Court of El Paso. Tried below before the Hon. Leigh Clark, Special Judge.
    Appeal from a conviction of murder; penalty, twenty years imprisonment in the penitentiary.
    The opinion states the case. .
    Ho brief on file for appellant.
    
      G. 0. McDonald, Assistant Attorney General,, for the State.
   PRENDERGAST, Presiding Judge.

Appellant was convicted of murder and his punishment assessed at twenty years in the penitentiary.

The case was tried on June 6, 1914, on which date the verdict was rendered. The motion for new trial was overruled and notice of appeal given to this court on June 27, 1914. The record jvas not filed in this court until January 29, 1915,—seven months and two days after the final judgment in the lower court. The record contains less than eighteen typewritten pages. It should have been filed in this court within a- very few days after the final judgment was rendered and in no event later than September 25th. If it had been, the case would have been disposed of and the appellant in the penitentiary or the case reversed about four months ago. Instead of that, El Paso County has been put to the expense of guarding and feeding this prisoner this extra time.

We have made it plain heretofore that this court will enforce the law and require the clerks of the lower courts to have the records here within not less than the ninety days prescribed by law, or they will be made to suffer the consequences. Recently the records in several other cases have been thus delayed. This is hut another warning to the clerks that if they persist in violating the law in this way it will he the duty of this court to impose the penalty of the law upon them for their neglect and failure. Most of the clerks comply with the law in this respect, we are glad to state. It is only occasionally here and there one does not.

There is neither a statement of facts nor hills of exceptions in this record. In the absence of these no question is raised which can he reviewed. The judgment must, therefore, necessarily be affirmed.

Affirmed.