1 In The 

### Court of Appeals Ninth District of Texas at Beaumont

__________________ NO . 09
- 24
- 00086
- CR

__________________ JAMES BRADLEY ALBRIGHT , Appellant
V.
THE STATE OF TEXAS , Appellee

__________________________________________________________________ On Appeal from the 252nd District Court Jefferson County, Texas Trial Cause No. F19
- 33082 -0

__________________________________________________________________ MEMORANDUM OPINION James Bradley Albright appeals from the trial court’s “ Deferred Adjudication Order of Dismissal,” which we will refer to as the Order of Dismissal , signed on February 2 , 2024

. The Order of Dismissal discharged Albright from community supervision and dismissed “ Trial Court Cause Number 19

- 33082. ” 1 Within thirty days of the date Albright’s case was dismissed, Albright filed a notice of appeal.

1 A slight discrepancy in the case number on the Order of Dismissal and the number assigned to the appeal occurred because Jefferson County implemented a2 After Albright appealed, the Clerk of the Ninth Court of Appeals , by letter , asked the parties to identify a statute or rule that authorized the Court to exercise jurisdiction over the appeal

. Although Albright filed a response to the Court’s jurisdictional inquiry, he d id not cite a statute or rule authoriz ing the Court ’s exercise of jurisdiction over his appeal. Additionally, we are not aware of a rule or statute that authoriz es our Court to exercise jurisdiction over a trial court’s ruling dismissing the State’s case w hen the order the trial court signs doesn’t adjudicate the defendant’s guilt or acquit the defendant of the allegations in the grand jury’s indictment. We recognize that appellate jurisdiction exists over final judgments in cases in which defendant s are either convicted or acquitted . Y et Albright has appealed from an order dismissing the charges filed against him in an indictment in which a Jefferson County Grand Jury charged him with felony possession of a control substance, meth amphetamin e
. 2 See Abbott v. State , 271 S.W.3d 694, 696

- 97 (Tex. Crim. App. 2008) (holding the court of appeals lacked jurisdiction to decide the merits of the appellant’s appeal when the appeal wasn’t authorized by statute or

new case numbering system after the trial court signed the Order of D ismissal . The renumbering resulted in the appeal being numbered “Cause No. F19

- 33082

- 0” rather than “ Cause 19

- 33082

. ” 2 The indictment alleges that on or about April 25, 2019, Albright intentionally and knowingly possessed at least four but less than 200 grams of methamphetamine, a controll ed substance, based on the substance’s aggregate weight, which includes any adulterants and dilutants.3 rule) ; Tex. R. App. P. 25.2(a)(2) ( stat ing that “ [a] defendant in a criminal case has the right of appeal under the Code of Criminal produce article 44.02 and these rules” in every case in which the trial court “enters a judgment of guilt or other appealable order”). For the reasons explained b elow, we conclude that we lack jurisdiction to decide Albright’s appeal

. Background The appellate record shows that in April 2020, the trial court accepted Albright’s nolo contendere plea to possession of a controlled substance, deferred the adjudication o f his guilt, and placed Albright on community supervision for five
years. 3 In September 2022, the trial court revoked the order the trial court used when it placed Albright on community supervision, adjudicated his guilt, and sentenced him to five years o f confinement in the Correctional Institutions Division, Texas Department of Criminal Justice. 4 In a 2023 appeal to this Court, Appeal Number 09

- 22

- 00338

- CR, Albright challenged the trial court’s revocation of its community

- supervision order during the hearing that occurred in September 2022

. In October 2023, the Ninth Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s judgment adjudicating Albright’s guilt in Trial

3 The record shows that Albright’s original community

- supervision order was signed by the elected judge of the 252nd District Court. 4 The judge that con ducted this hearing was a retired judge and sitting by assignment for the 252nd District Court.4 Cause Number 19

- 33082, and we remanded the case to the trial court so the trial

cour t could conduct further proceedings in Albright’s case. See Albright v. State , No.
09

- 22

- 00338

- CR, 2023 WL 6852593, at *2 (Tex. App.

— Beaumont, Oct. 18, 2023, no pet.). In Albright’s 2023 appeal, we reversed the trial court’s order adjudicating Albright’s g uilt and returned the case to the trial court for further proceedings after concluding that Albright was deprived of his right to counsel during the revocation hearing that occurred in September 2022

. See id. After our mandate issued , the parties returned to the trial court , and a n attorney filed a notice of representation in the trial court on Albright’s behalf. In January 2024, the State filed a “Motion to Dismiss Motion to Revoke Probation

. ” In the State’s Motion to Dismiss, the State asked the trial co urt to dismiss its motion alleging Albright had violated the terms of the court’s community

- supervision order
in “the above entitled and numbered criminal action in the Interest of Justice.” The trial court granted the request to dismiss its “M otion to Revoke Probation” on the same day that the motion was filed. T wo days after the trial court signed the order granting the State’s Motion to Revoke Probation , the trial court signed a “Deferred Adjudication Order of Dismissal

. ” In that Order, the trial cour t “ ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED this the 2nd day of Feb., 2024, that the defendant is hereby discharged from community supervision and the cause is dismissed.”5 Albright, however, was apparently not satisfied with having the case against him dismissed ev en though the indictment charged him with a felony. So, within thirty days of the date the trial court signed the order of dismiss al , Albright filed a Motion to Reinstate the Case on the Court’s docket. In his motion, Albright argued that prior to the hear ing on the State ’s Motion to Revoke, the State had withheld information from him, and he wanted his day in court in the revocation proceedings

so that he might receive the verdict “THAT HE DESERVES[.]” On February 28, 2024, t he trial court denied Albright ’s Motion to Reinstate. That same day, Albright filed a timely notice of appeal. After perfecting his appeal,
t he Clerk of t he Court of Appeals sent the parties a letter , which states that the order of dismissal that Albright was seeking to appeal was “nei ther a final judgment nor an appealable order.” In the letter, the Clerk asked the parties to f ile written replies and identify the “ particular statute or rule that authorized ” the Court to exercise jurisdiction over the Order of Dismissal from which Albright had appealed . The Court’s Clerk also warned the parties that if the Court lacked jurisdiction over Albright’s appeal, his appeal would be dismissed without further notice

. Albright respon ded to the Court’s request on March 20, 2024. In his response , Albright complained about various event s that occurred during the years he was on community supervision in 2020 and 2021, a period in which he contends employees of the State vi olated his right to due process

. Albright also complain s that the elected6 judge of the 252nd District Court, the judge who placed him on community supervision , did not have the authority to delegate her responsibility to conduct the subsequent hearings tha t occurred in his case to other judge s , including the judge who , following the hearing on the State’s Motion to Revoke that occurred in September 2022 , adjudicated his guilt. 5 According to Albright, only the judge who signed the original order used to place him on community supervision possessed the authority to amend or revoke the court order placing Albright on community supervision

. Additionally, Albright argues that in the hearings conducted in his case in 2021 and 2022 , the State failed to prove that he violate d the terms of the trial court’s community

- supervision order

. Analysis In criminal cases, t he standard for determining appellate jurisdiction is whether the appeal is authorized by law. Abbott , 271 S.W.3d at 69 6

- 9 7 . Generally, the right to appeal is limited to appeals from judgments of conviction and interlocutory orders that , by statute , the legislature made appealable. See id

. As

5 Although signed by different district court judges, all the orders that Albright complains about were filed in the 252nd District Court. We note that section 24.003 of the Government Code allows district judges in counties with more than one district court to “hear and determine any case or proceeding pending in another district court in the county without hav ing the case transferred,” to “ sit for another dist rict court in the county and hear and determine any case or proceeding pending in that court [,]” and to “ temporarily exchange benches with the judge of another district court in the county [.]” Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. § 24.003(b)(2), (3), (4).7 mentioned, t he order Albright has appealed merely dismisse s the State’s case against him, and as we will explain it doesn’t function as a final judgment. Under the Code of Criminal Procedure, “ [a] judgment is the written declaration of the court signed by the trial judge and entered of record showing the conviction or acquittal of the defendan t

. ” Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann. a rt. 42.01 (emphasis added by the Court). Thus, because the Order of Dismissal neither convicts Albright of possessing a controlled substance , as charged in the indictment, nor acquits him of possessi ng a controlled substance , we conclude the order isn’t appealable as a final judgment. We have also not found a statute authoriz ing appeal s from ruling s granting the State’s request to dismiss a motion or request to dismiss a case. See Abbott , 271 S.W.3d at 697 (noting that under article 42.01 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, orders that are not final judgments are appealable only when the appeal is expressly authorized by statute). Specifically, t he statute that authoriz es a judge to reduce or terminate the period a defendant is to serve community supervision does not include a provision that grants a defendant the right to appeal. See Tex. Code Crim. Proc

. Ann

. art. 42A.701. The same is true of the statute that authoriz es the State’s attorney to dismiss criminal action s , article 34.02 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure. That statute also doesn’t provide defendant s with a right to appeal in the event the trial court decides to grant the State’s request to dismiss a case. See id

. a r t. 32.02.8 Albright prays that this Court hold “the parties involved . . . responsible for the official oppression of a[n] innocent man and . . . hold them responsible for any and all damages done and for the emotional monet[a]ry hardships cause d by the

un lawful imprisonment.” 6 Yet because we lack jurisdiction over Albright’s appeal,

we deny Albright’s “Motion to Declare Facts , ” and we dismiss Albright’s appeal for lack of jurisdiction.
APPEAL DISMISSED

. PER CURIAM

Submitted on April 9, 2024 Opinion Delivered April 10, 2024 Do Not Publish Before Horton , Johnson and Wright, JJ.

6 Quotation has been altered from the original, which appears in all capital letters.