Court Opinion

ID: 9953963
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-25 08:11:54.514665+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:12:57.595319
License: Public Domain

In the
          Court of Appeals
  Second Appellate District of Texas
           at Fort Worth
         ___________________________

              No. 02-23-00185-CR
         ___________________________

        GORDON RAY LEWIS, Appellant

                        V.

             THE STATE OF TEXAS

      On Appeal from the 355th District Court
              Hood County, Texas
            Trial Court No. CR12234

   Before Birdwell, J.; Sudderth, C.J.; and Kerr, J.
         Per Curiam Memorandum Opinion
Concurring Memorandum Opinion by Justice Birdwell
                           MEMORANDUM OPINION

      Appellant Gordon Ray Lewis is attempting to appeal the denial of his motion

for forensic DNA testing. See Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 64.01. After missing

the regular appellate deadlines, Lewis relied on Rule 4.6 of the Texas Rules of

Appellate Procedure as the basis for this court’s jurisdiction and claimed that

(1) neither he nor his attorney had notice or actual knowledge of the trial court’s order

within twenty days after the trial court had signed it and (2) his appellate timetables

should not have begun until the date he or his counsel received notice or had actual

knowledge of the trial court’s order. See Tex. R. App. P. 4.6. Although the trial court

granted Lewis’s Rule 4.6 motion, its order did not specify when Lewis or his counsel

first had notice or actual knowledge of its order, so we abated the appeal so that the

trial court could conduct a hearing to resolve the factual issues underlying its order.

See Lewis v. State, No. 02-23-00185-CR, 2023 WL 8820311, at *6 (Tex. App.—Fort

Worth Dec. 21, 2023, order) (mem. op., not designated for publication).             After

conducting the hearing, the trial court found that both Lewis and his counsel had

notice of its written order within twenty days of its signing. Based on these findings, we

hold that Lewis cannot rely on Rule 4.6, that Lewis failed to timely perfect his appeal,

and that we must dismiss his appeal for want of jurisdiction. See Tex. R. App. P. 4.6.

                                                       Per Curiam
Do Not Publish
Tex. R. App. P. 47.2(b)
Delivered: March 21, 2024

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