Texas v. Wachtendorf (original by judge yeary)
Annotate this CaseAppellee John Wachtendorf, Jr. was charged with the felony offense of Driving While Intoxicated. According to the district clerk’s file-mark, on January 16, 2014, Appellee filed a motion to suppress the results of a test for blood alcohol concentration following the extraction of blood at the time of his arrest. At the conclusion of a hearing on February 14, 2014, the trial court took the motion to suppress under advisement. On July 7, 2014, the hearing reconvened, and the trial court orally announced that it intended to grant Appellee’s motion. The docket sheet reflected that the trial court actually signed an order to that effect on the same day. The State contended, however, that the trial court did not sign the order in open court, and the Reporter’s Record did not clearly indicate that it did. Rather, the Reporter’s Record showed that, in response to the State’s request for written findings of fact and conclusions of law, the trial court directed Appellee to prepare proposed findings and conclusions and adjourned the hearing. Appellee did not immediately file the requested findings and conclusions. The issue for the Court of Criminal Appeals’ review this case was whether the time for filing a notice of appeal from an order adverse to the State should begin to run with the trial court’s signing of that order if the State received no timely notice that the order had been signed. The State argued that it was not notified that the trial court had signed an order granting Appellee’s motion to suppress until the period for filing its notice of appeal had expired. Having received no notice of this triggering event, the State filed an untimely notice of appeal, and the Court of Appeals dismissed its appeal for want of jurisdiction. Finding no reversible error in the Court of Appeals’ decision, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed.
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