Court Opinion

ID: 9760235
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:43:45.076544+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:09.503230
License: Public Domain

ODOM, Judge,
dissenting.
I dissent to the majority’s opinion that Article 28.01, V.A.C.C.P., was not violated *793when the trial court overruled appellant’s motion to dismiss court-appointed counsel and appoint new counsel without a hearing and in the absence of appellant and his attorney.
By a strange reading of Art. 28.01, supra, the majority asserts that the trial court’s ruling did not constitute a “proceeding.” Black’s Law Dictionary defines proceeding as “the form and manner of conducting juridical business before a court or judicial officer; regular and orderly progress in form of law; including all possible steps in an action from its commencement to the execution of judgment.” To deny that the trial court’s ruling on appellant’s motion was a proceeding, as the majority does, cannot remove the error from this case: it merely compounds the error. The majority has simply held that the trial court’s ruling was wholly without lawful authority since it was taken, according to the majority’s way of thinking, outside the realm of judicial “proceedings.” The majority’s attempt to avoid the abatement of an appeal required by Riggall v. State, 590 S.W.2d 460, for violation of Art. 28.01, supra, has, for its short-sightedness, simply moved the error from the frying pan into the fire.
As I view this case, the trial court’s adverse ruling on appellant’s motion violated the requirements of Art. 28.01, supra, and, as explained in Riggall v. State, supra, the appeal should be abated so that the statutory requirements may be satisfied. I dissent to the majority’s unconvincing attempt to avoid that just procedure.