Court Opinion

ID: 9683052
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:21:31.58732+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:44.341958
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON APPELLEE’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
ONION, Judge.
On appellee’s motion for rehearing, it is urged for the first time that the appeal in the case at bar should be dismissed because notice of appeal was not given within ten days after sentence was pronounced, as required by Art. 44.08(c), Vernon’s Ann. C.C.P., and there is nothing in the record to show that the court, for good cause shown, permitted the giving of such notice after the ten days allowed had expired.
With appellee’s contention we cannot agree.
*655Sentence was pronounced on May 10, 1966. On the same day an appeal bond, in the amount of $1,000.00 was approved by the trial court.
The notation “Notice of Appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeals was given in open court” appears in the transcript of the court reporter’s notes of the trial proceeding. Such notation together with the trial court’s approval of the appeal bond on the day sentence was pronounced, and his subsequent approval of the record on September 14, 1966, which included said notation, is deemed sufficient to show that notice of appeal was given on May 10, 1966.
Article 44.08(a), V.A.C.C.P., reads as follows:
“It shall be necessary for defendant, as a condition of perfecting an appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeals, to give notice of appeal. This notice may be given orally in open court or may be in writing filed with the clerk. Such notice shall be sufficient if it shows the desire of defendant to appeal from the conviction to the Court of Criminal Appeals”
Section (c) of Article 44.08, supra, provides in cases such as this that “such notice shall be given or filed within ten days after sentence is pronounced.”
Section (d) of the same Article reads as follows:
“The record on appeal will be deemed sufficient to show notice of appeal was duly given if it contains written notice of appeal showing a date of filing within the time required by law or if the record contains any judgment or sentence or other court order or docket entry by the court showing that notice of appeal was duly given.”
Section (d) of Article 44.08, V.A. C.C.P., purports to set forth what will be deemed to be sufficient to show notice of appeal in the record on appeal, but we do not construe said section as the exclusive method of giving notice of appeal or as a limitation upon the language of Sections (a) and (c).
The procedure for giving notice of appeal was liberalized by the provisions of Article 44.08, V.A.C.C.P., 1965, and no longer is it necessary that notice of appeal be actually entered of record on the minutes of the court before it is deemed sufficient. See former Article 827, C.C.P., 1925.
It is true that in Breakwell v. State, 78 Tex.Cr.R. 406, 181 S.W. 727, a recital in the recognizance on appeal that appellant appear from day to day, etc., in order to abide the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals was held insufficient to constitute a notice of appeal. Breakwell, supra, can be easily distinguished from the case at bar because the recital in the recognizance was the only notice of appeal appearing in the record, and the decision was rendered while the former article was in effect.
In its motion for rehearing the ap-pellee urges that even if notice of appeal were given within ten days after sentence the transcript of evidence cannot be considered by this Court because it was filed more than 90 days after the giving of such notice. It has been noted that the trial judge approved the record on September 14, 1966. Article 40.09, Section 3, V.A.C.C.P., reads in part as follows:
“ * * * and the approval of the record after the expiration of the time provided by law for its approval shall be sufficient proof that the time for filing the transcription was properly extended, and the transcription so filed shall be construed as having been filed within the time required by law.”
Appellee’s motion for rehearing is overruled.