Court Opinion

ID: 9680917
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:40:59.615376+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:31.310184
License: Public Domain

ROBERTS, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree with the results reached by the majority. However, I dissent to the method used to dispose of appellant’s second ground of error.
At the outset, I note that the appellant was convicted on January 23, 1976. Thus, the appellant had ten days in which to file a motion for new trial and motion in arrest of judgment. Articles 40.05 and 41.02, Vernon’s Ann.C.C.P. The appellant had until Monday February 2, 1976, to file these motions.
However, the appellant did not file his motion for new trial until February 4,1976. The untimely motion for new trial was expressly overruled on February 5, 1976.
On February 9,1976, an amended motion for new trial was filed. A hearing was held on that untimely filed amended motion for new trial on March 18, 1976.
The essential question is whether the trial judge’s action in expressly overruling the appellant’s untimely filed motion for new trial deprived the trial judge of the power to grant the appellant leave to file an amended motion for new trial.
Article 40.05, Vernon’s Ann.C.C.P., states:
“A motion for new trial shall be filed within ten days after conviction as evidenced by the verdict of the jury, and may be amended by leave of the court at any time before it is acted on within twenty days after it is filed. Such motion shall be presented to the court within ten days after the filing of the original or amended motion, and shall be determined by the court within twenty days after the filing of the original or amended motion, but for good cause shown the time for filing or amending may be extended by the court, but shall not delay the filing of the record on appeal. . . .” (Emphasis added.)
In Clopton v. State, 563 S.W.2d 930 (Tex.Cr.App.1978), the defendant timely filed an original motion for new trial. Twenty days thereafter, the original motion for new trial was overruled by operation of law. Thereafter, a second motion for new trial was filed. This Court there held that despite the fact that the original motion for new trial had been overruled by operation of law the trial judge had the power to consider a second motion for new trial and that the record did not have to reflect that the trial judge found that good cause existed for the untimely filing of the second motion for new trial.
A different situation is presented in this appeal. Two factors significantly distinguish the present case from Clopton: (1) Unlike Clopton, the first motion for new trial was not timely filed; and (2) unlike Clopton, the trial judge expressly overruled the first motion for new trial.
It is clear that unlike Clopton the trial judge did affirmatively rule on the appellant’s original motion for new trial within twenty days after it was untimely filed. In light of the language of Article 40.05, Vernon’s Ann.C.C.P., and the distinctions between the present case and Clopton, I would hold that the trial judge’s express ruling on the original untimely filed motion for new trial deprived him of the power to grant the appellant leave to file an untimely amended motion for new trial. For this reason I would overrule appellant’s second ground of error.