Court Opinion

ID: 9662127
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 23:00:02.882629+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:37.085397
License: Public Domain

McCORMICK, Presiding Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
I concur with the disposition of appellee’s first ground for review. I dissent to the disposition of appellee’s second ground for review.
*312I would hold the July 3, 1991, order granting a new trial “as to punishment only” was not an appealable order because none of the provisions in Article 44.01, Y.A.C.C.P., allow an appeal from such an order by the State; Article 44.01(a)(3), V.A.C.C.P., allows the State to appeal only from an order “granting a new trial.” But see State v. Kanapa, 795 S.W.2d 36, 37 (Tex.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1990, no pet.). Since the July 3, 1991, order, was not an appealable order, I also would hold the Court of Appeals had jurisdiction to review this order, and set it aside, in the State’s appeal from the trial court’s February 3, 1992, order granting a new trial. See Tex.R.App.Proc. 41(b)(1) (a State’s appeal is perfected when notice of appeal is filed within fifteen days after the day sentence is imposed or suspended in open court or the day an appealable order is signed by the trial judge); see also Rodarte v. State, 860 S.W.2d 108, 110 (Tex.Cr.App.1993) (timetable for State’s notice of appeal begins on the day of the signing of an appealable order). I would further hold the Court of Appeals was correct in deciding that appellee’s remedy is to raise his contentions in a post-conviction writ of habeas corpus pursuant to Article 11.07, V.A.C.C.P.
Finally, the Court remands this cause to the trial court “for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.” But, what will these proceedings be? In its disposition of appellee’s first ground for review, the Court all but says the July 3, 1991, order is void because the trial court lacked the authority to grant a new trial “as to punishment only.” But' in its disposition of appellee’s second ground for review, the Court also says the Court of Appeals was without authority “to rule upon the July 3rd order” because the State did not timely perfect an appeal from that order. Does the trial court, sua sponte, have the authority to set aside the July 3, 1991, order, should it understand the majority to be saying that order is void? Or, will the trial court hold a hearing “as to punishment only” pursuant to the July 3, 1991, order, which the Court, in effect, says is void? Or, will the State file a mandamus action in an attempt to void the July 3, 1991, order even though, according to the Court, the State had an adequate remedy to challenge that order by appealing from it? This case is beginning to take on the characteristics of a procedural quagmire. Therefore, I dissent.
WHITE and OVERSTREET, JJ, join.