State v. Moore

• Decision Date: 06 June 2007
• Docket Number: No. PD-0359-06.,PD-0359-06.
• Citation: 225 S.W.3d 556
• Parties: The STATE of Texas v. Billy MOORE, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

225 S.W.3d 556

The STATE of Texas v. Billy MOORE, Appellee.

No. PD-0359-06.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

June 6, 2007.

David M. Gonzalez, Austin, for Appellant.

Gisselle Horton, Assistant County Atty., Matthew Paul, State's Atty., Austin, for State.

OPINION

PRICE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court in which MEYERS, WOMACK, JOHNSON, KEASLER, HOLCOMB and COCHRAN, J.J., joined.

We granted the appellee's petition for discretionary review in this case to determine whether, and under what circumstances, a trial court may entertain an amended motion for new trial that is filed after the thirty-day time limit for filing amended motions for new trial without leave of court in Rule 21.4(b) of the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure. We hold that, at least so long as the State does not timely object to a late-filed amended motion for new trial, the trial court does not err to grant it.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL POSTURE

The appellee was convicted of the misdemeanor offense of driving while intoxicated. On March 22, 2005, the trial court imposed sentence at a term of 100 days of incarceration in the county jail. The next day, March 23, 2005, trial counsel filed a timely motion for new trial and a motion to withdraw as counsel, the latter of which was granted. Newly appointed appellate counsel filed an amended motion for new trial and a motion for leave to file that amended motion on May 13, 2005, more than thirty days after sentence was imposed. The amended motion raised two grounds that had not appeared in the initial motion for new trial, including a Brady claim that the State failed to disclose evidence that would have impeached the credibility of the State's chief witness at trial.¹ This amended motion failed to incorporate any supporting affidavits or other documentation, and on May 20, 2005, the appellee filed a second amended motion for new trial, alleging the same grounds but including affidavits and documentary support, along with another motion for leave to file. The trial court granted the motion for leave to file the second amended motion for new trial on the same day it was filed, and set a hearing on the second amended motion for new trial to be conducted on June 3, 2005, the 73rd day after sentence was imposed.

After a brief hearing on June 3rd, the trial court granted the appellee's second motion for new trial on the Brady ground alone. On June 14, 2005, the State filed a motion requesting the trial court to reconsider its order granting the appellee's second motion for new trial, asserting for the first time that the trial court lacked authority to grant such a motion because it had not been timely filed in accordance with Rule 21.4(b).² The trial court conducted another brief hearing on the State's motion, but, convinced by the appellee's argument that it lacked authority to act on the State's motion because it was filed beyond the 75-day period for ruling on a motion for new trial,³ the trial court denied the State's motion for reconsideration. The State appealed.⁴

In an unpublished opinion, the Austin Court of Appeals "overruled" the trial court's order granting the new trial and remanded the cause to the trial court.⁵ Without reaching the merits of the motion, the court of appeals held that Rule 21.4(b) prohibits any amendment of a motion for new trial that is attempted beyond the thirty-day period, even with leave of court, and that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to rule on any such amendment, citing this Court's opinions in Dugard v. State,⁶ and Drew v. State.⁷ Combined, these two cases may be read to support the proposition that the statutory predecessor to Rule 21.4(b) interposes a jurisdictional bar to a trial court's entertaining an amended motion for new trial if the amendment was filed after the 30 days expires for filing an original or amended motion for new trial.

In his petition for discretionary review, the appellee argues that the language of Rule 21.4(b) is sufficiently different from its statutory predecessor that we need not follow these cases. He further argues that, in any event, we should not regard any prohibition within Rule 21.4(b) as jurisdictional, in light of the recent opinion of the United States Supreme Court in Eberhart v. United States.⁸ Eberhart construed the federal procedural rules with respect to the time limits for filing a motion for new trial to allow a late-filed amendment to a motion for new trial so long as the Government does not complain of the lack of timeliness of the amendment. The Supreme Court reasoned that such rules are to be regarded as "claim-processing rules" rather than rules that absolutely circumscribe the trial court's jurisdiction.⁹

We granted the appellee's petition to examine these contentions. We hold that Rule 21.4(b) does prohibit a defendant from filing an amended motion for new trial after the thirty-day period prescribed, even with leave of court. We also hold, however, that this prohibition does not deprive the trial court of jurisdiction; nor does it deprive the trial court of the authority to rule on a tardy amendment to a timely motion for new trial, at least absent an objection from the State, at any time within the seventy-five days for ruling on a motion for new trial. We therefore reverse the judgment of the court of appeals.

STATUTORY HISTORY AND THE RULE

The appellee first contends that we should construe present-day Rule 21.4(b)'s provision for unfettered (i.e., "without leave of court") amendment of a motion for new trial within thirty days to implicitly authorize the trial court to entertain an amendment filed after the thirty days so long as the defendant first seeks and obtains leave of court to do so. We disagree with this contention. In order to fully explain our disagreement, and also to provide some perspective on the question whether the prohibition against the tardy filing of an amended motion for new trial embodied in Rule 21.4(b) is "jurisdictional," it is necessary to examine the history of the rule and its statutory antecedents.

Early Incarnations of the Statute

Article 671 of the first Code of Criminal Procedure of 1857 required the defendant to file a motion for new trial "within two days after the verdict is returned[.]" But it also provided that, in felony cases, "for good cause shown," the trial court could entertain a motion for new trial that is filed "at any time before the adjournment of the term at which the verdict was found."¹⁰ Thus, at least with respect to an original motion for new trial, Article 671 operated much like the kind of "claim-processing" rule the Supreme Court identified in Eberhart. That is to say, the statute provided a deadline for motions for new trial, but did not predicate the trial court's jurisdiction to rule on a motion for new trial upon its timely filing. The statute did not expressly speak to amendments to motions for new trial.

In 1879, Article 671 was re-codified as Article 779, without substantive amendment.¹¹ Our predecessor, the Texas Court of Appeals, construed this provision to grant trial courts discretion to reach the merits of a late-filed motion for new trial under the terms prescribed in the statute, such discretion to be respected by a reviewing court "unless it be made to appear that the discretion . . . had been improperly exercised, and that too to the prejudice of the party against whom the ruling was made."¹² The following year the Texas Court of Appeals reversed a conviction in which a "supplemental" motion for new trial was filed.¹³ The trial court had at first refused to entertain the motion on the ground that it had already overruled the defendant's original, timely filed motion for new trial, and the defendant had thereafter filed his notice of appeal, thus divesting the trial court of jurisdiction of the case.¹⁴ The defendant filed "a further application," offering to withdraw his notice of appeal.¹⁵ This the trial court allowed him to do, and then denied his supplemental motion for new trial on the merits.¹⁶ The Texas Court of Appeals found that the trial court abused its discretion in failing to grant the supplemental motion for new trial on the particular facts presented, citing Article 779 for the proposition that the trial court had not erred to entertain it on the merits.¹⁷

The statute was carried over verbatim into the 1895 Code of Criminal Procedure as Article 819. Construing Article 819, this Court followed the lead of the Texas Court of Appeals, holding that "the article, in effect, confides to the judicial discretion of the trial court the determination of applications for new trial made after the expiration of two days, and the exercise of that discretion will not be revised, unless it has been abused to the defendant's prejudice."¹⁸ Moreover, although the statute still did not speak expressly to amendments to motions for new trial, the terms of the statute were held to apply in that context as well.¹⁹ Before long this Court went so far as to hold that one trial court had abused its discretion in refusing to allow the defendant to file a clearly meritorious but out-of-time amendment to a motion for new trial that was proffered within the term of court.²⁰

Twice more the statute was re-codified without substantive change, first in the 1911 Code of Criminal Procedure, and then in the 1925 Code of Criminal Procedure. In 1935, then-Article 755 was amended to delete the phrase "in felony cases," the effect of which was to allow trial courts to extend the time for filing motions for new trial "for good cause shown" within the term of court in misdemeanor as well as felony cases.²¹ The Legislature did not otherwise substantively amend the statute until 1951. During the forty years between 1911 and 1951, this Court adhered to its earlier construction of the statute. We consistently held that it was within the trial court's authority, as a discretionary matter, subject to appellate review only for abuse of discretion,...