Court Opinion

ID: 9768427
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 06:02:30.864853+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:40.779758
License: Public Domain

CLINTON, Judge,
dissenting.
The Court correctly rejects the rationale leading to the finding of the court of appeals that appellant “waived any alleged defects in the original proceeding by failing to move for an adjudication of guilty within thirty days,” David v. State, 681 S.W.2d 147, 149 (Tex.App.-Houston [14th] 1984). That rationale misapprehends the lesson of McDougal v. State, 610 S.W.2d 509 (Tex.Cr.App.1981): an order deferring adjudication pursuant to Article 42.12, § 3d(a), V.A. C.C.P., simply is not appealable until there has been an adjudication of guilt. McDou-gal, supra, at 509-510. However, § 3d(c) expressly authorizes an appeal after an adjudication of guilt et cetera. McDougal, at 510 (Clinton, J., concurring).
Finding a waiver, the court of appeals did not reach the second question posed by appellant for that court to decide. Accordingly, I would remand the cause for it to reach and decide the issue. See Lam-brecht v. State, 681 S.W.2d 614, 616 (Tex.Cr.App.1984). Because the Court does not I respectfully dissent.1

. Not only do the pertinent statutes confine review authority of this Court to a "decision" of a court of appeals, but also in the process facts relevant to an issue are distilled to perceived effects to which we give some deference. If the Court is determined to decline the benefit of that process and "go it alone” in this instance to look for the reason there is not a transcription of notes taken by the court reporter, then it ought to start with an order that the court reporter “prepare a statement of facts without charge to appellant," rendered by the trial court February 3, 1983 — three months before she destroyed them to lighten the load to Tyler. Manifestly, she did not comply with that order. It is specious to attribute to appellant her own decision to destroy the very notes she had been ordered by the trial court to transcribe into a statement of facts.