Court Opinion

ID: 9759267
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:10:33.024462+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:00.625761
License: Public Domain

BURGESS, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. Tex. Const, art. V, § 26 states: “The State is entitled to appeal in criminal cases, as authorized by general law.” The only general law provision implementing the state’s right of appeal is Tex.Code Crim.Proc.Ann. art. 44.01 (Vernon Supp.1991), enacted in 1987. At that time Chapter 45, Tex.Code Crim.Proc. Ann. (Vernon 1979) had governed appeals from justice and municipal courts since 1965. We should not presume the legislature was simply unaware of those provisions and thus the failure to amend Chapter 45 was some type of oversight. The facts suggest otherwise. In 1987 when the legislature implemented the state’s right to appeal it also dealt with appeals from municipal courts. It chose to maintain the requirements of (1) trial de novo, Tex.Code Crim.Proc.Ann. arts. 44.17 and 45.10 (Vernon Supp.1991); (2) the state shall not be entitled to a new trial, Tex.Code Crim.Proc. Ann. art. 45.47 (Vernon 1979); and (3) the effect of an appeal article only mentions a defendant, Tex.Code Crim.Proc.Ann. art. 45.48 (Vernon 1979).
The majority seeks to correct this alleged legislative oversight by judicial construction of article 44.01 by relying on the fact that it was passed later than the Chapter 45 articles. This court must try to construe the various states in harmony. Article 44.01 and articles 45.01-.55 can easily be harmonized by affirming the trial court’s ruling that a county court-at-law has no jurisdiction to hear an appeal by the *929State arising from a municipal court prosecution because the legislature has not authorized such an appeal. Until the legislature specifically does so, this court should not. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.