Court Opinion

ID: 9772526
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:20:49.971276+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:45.261276
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
concurring.
I agree the Court lacks jurisdiction of this purported appeal from an order deferring adjudication of guilt and placing appellant on “probation.” But it seems to me there is a firmer ground for our holding the Court is without jurisdiction than the twin provisions of Articles 42.12 and 42.13, § 3d, Y.A. C.C.P., barring an appeal from determination by the court below to proceed with an adjudication of guilt on the original charge. That is the fundamental proposition constitutionally laid down and articulated in Article V, § 5, of the Constitution of the State of Texas: “The Court of Criminal Appeals shall have appellate jurisdiction ... in all criminal cases ... with such exceptions and under such regulations as may be prescribed by law.” The corollary is, as expressed by the Court in Ex parte Minor, 115 Tex.Cr.R. 634, 27 S.W.2d 805, 807 (1930), “[O]ne who would invoke the jurisdiction of the Court of Criminal Appeals must be able to point to some provision of the statute conferring the right of appeal and bring himself with the procedure prescribed by the Legislature.” Appellant simply cannot do that in the situation he finds himself. See generally McIntyre v. State, 587 S.W.2d 413, 416 (Tex.Cr.App.1979).
As McNew v. State, 608 S.W.2d 166 (Tex. Cr.App. Opinion on Rehearing, delivered 1980), makes clear, the kind of “probation” utilized by the court in a deferred adjudication proceeding pursuant to § 3d, supra, is a breed other than “regular” probation granted under authority provided elsewhere in the probation and supervision acts. Conceptually, “probation” during deferred adjudication is similar to “probation” following a conditional discharge allowed by § 4.12 of the Controlled Substances Act, Article 4476-15, V.A.C.S. McIntyre v. State, supra, at 414.
The appeal permitted by § 8(b) of the acts “for a review of the trial and conviction ... at the time he is placed on probation” 1 is not available to one situated as our appellant here for he has not yet suffered a conviction, as McNew v. State, supra, convincingly demonstrates.
However, the Court correctly points out appellate review is not completely denied our appellant and others similarly situated — it merely awaits, as in the usual case, an adjudication of guilt, assessment of punishment, grant of “regular” probation or imposition of sentence “as if the adjudication of guilt had not been deferred,” § 3d, supra; Williams v. State, 592 S.W.2d 931, 932 (Tex.Cr.App.1979); see McIntyre v. State, supra, at 418.
Accordingly, I concur in the order of dismissal.
McCORMICK, J., joins.

. All emphasis is mine unless otherwise indicated.