Court Opinion

ID: 9771857
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:56:27.145449+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:38.383506
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON APPELLANT’S MOTION FOR REHEARING
DOUGLAS, Judge.
Appellant in this motion for rehearing for the first time argues that his sentence was prematurely pronounced and this Court was, therefore, without jurisdiction to hear his appeal. Parr urges that we dismiss his appeal and allow the case to proceed with a timely sentencing and whatever subsequent appellate steps Parr chooses to pursue.
The jury assessed punishment against appellant and a judgment was entered on September 12, 1975. Within ten days of this date, on September 19, 1975, appellant filed a motion for new trial. He was sentenced on October 6, 1975. On that date the trial court had not directly overruled his motion for new trial and, because it had not been on file for twenty days, it had not been overruled by operation of law. Article 40.05, V.A.C.C.P.
A sentence should not be pronounced until the motion for new trial is overruled. Ex parte Shields, 550 S.W.2d 670 (Tex.Cr.App.1977). However, in Shields, we carefully analyzed the nature of this defect and concluded that it rendered the sentence voidable, not void.
In the instant case, appellant acquiesced to the premature sentence. He *529neither objected at the time nor raised it in his appellate brief. Instead, he raises it for the first time on motion for rehearing. Under Article 40.09, V.A.C.C.P., this Court has power to review only grounds of error raised by the “defendant’s brief in the court” and unassigned error which in our opinion “should be reviewed in the interest of justice.” Given appellant’s decision to acquiesce in the premature sentencing, his decision not to raise the issue until after our original opinion was handed down, and the fact that the defect renders the sentence voidable not void, we conclude that consideration of the issue would not be in the interest of justice. Housewright v. State, 573 S.W.2d 233 (Tex.Cr.App.1978) (opinion on original submission).
The motion for rehearing is overruled.