Henry Demond Dorsey v. State ( 2015 )

ACCEPTED
14-14-00718-cr
FOURTEENTH COURT OF APPEALS
HOUSTON, TEXAS
6/29/2015 7:32:15
6/22/2015 9:41:09 AM
CHRISTOPHER PRINE
CLERK
No. 14-14-00718-CR
In the FILED IN
14th COURT OF APPEALS
Court of Appeals HOUSTON, TEXAS
For the 6/29/2015 9:41:09 AM
Fourteenth District of Texas CHRISTOPHER A. PRINE
Clerk
At Houston

No. 1370868
In the 182nd District Court
Of Harris County, Texas

HENRY DEMOND DORSEY
Appellant
v.
THE STATE OF TEXAS
Appellee

STATE’S MOTION FOR EXTENSION
OF TIME TO FILE BRIEF

To the Honorable Court of Appeals:
The State of Texas, pursuant to Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure 2 and
10.5, moves for an extension of time in which to file its appellate brief. The
following facts are relevant:
1. The appellant was indicted for murder. Appellant pled not guilty, but a
jury found him guilty of the charged offense. The jury assessed
sentence at 55 years confinement in the Texas Department of
Criminal Justice. Appellant filed timely notice of appeal.
2. Appellant filed an appellate brief on March 23, 2015.
3. The State’s appellate brief is due on May 22, 2015.
4. This is the State’s third request for an extension in this case. The
State’s response has taken longer than expected because she was
unexpectedly set for oral argument in Patrick Earvin v. State, No. 14-
14-00702-CR & 14-14-00703-CR. She had to cease work on this brief
to prepare for arguments taking roughly a week of time she had
expected to devote to this case.
5. The State requests this extension of time in which to file its brief, and
the undersigned attorney believes that a brief can be filed by July 10,
2015. She has begun review of the lengthy record, but has not been
able to complete the necessary reading. Several more days of record
review are required before she can write the brief.
6. The following facts are relied upon to show good cause for an
extension of time to allow the State to file its brief:
a. At present, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office
employees 15 appellate prosecutors, but one is presently
deployed on active military service and unable to carry a
caseload, and the chief is often required to perform so many
administrative tasks he cannot carry a caseload. Accordingly,
the remaining members of the appellate division are currently
assigned a caseload of approximately 62 active cases showing
an average of 4.7 briefs per prosecutor.
b. The attorney to whom this case is assigned has six outstanding
briefs assigned to her including this one, one of which was
recently reinstated after abatement.
c. Between the time that the appellant filed his brief in this case
and this State’s motion for extension, the undersigned prepared
for oral argument which she intends to present today, and filed
the following written documents, namely: the brief on Patrick
Earvin, No. 14-14-00702-CR and 703-CR, William Dixon, No.
14-14-00510-CR, Gerald Darby, No. 14-14-00687-CR, and
Penton v. State, No. 14-14-00406-CR, she also prepared
proposed findings and conclusions in Penton, as well as filing a
lengthy brief on Uvukansi v. State, No. 01-14-00527-CR. She
prepared a bench brief on a pending trial matter in State v. Alas,
No. 1437254 for prosecutors in the 338th District Court. And
she attended the 2015 Conference on Criminal Appeals.
d. The workload of this prosecutor is not out of the ordinary in
the appellate division of the Harris County District Attorney’s
Office.
e. In addition to its assignments in responding to appellate briefs,
the appellate division of the Harris County District Attorney’s
Office also answers questions from trial prosecutors. These
questions frequently occur in the middle of or immediately
before trial, and therefore other work must be put aside to
answer these pressing questions. Harris County has 25
Criminal District Courts and 15 County Criminal Courts at Law,
and this particular prosecutor is tasked with answering
questions related to Texas Code of Criminal Procedure article
39.14 regarding discovery changes, is one of two prosecutors
tasked with answering any juvenile law related questions, and
answers questions from five felony courts in addition to the
three juvenile courts. As part of those tasks she handled a
number of questions during the trial of Victor Alas in the 338th
District Court that took a number of hours away from her
briefing duties requiring expedited responses to issues that
developed during trial.
f. The Harris County District Attorney’s Office Appellate Division
is experiencing a significant workload at present. Appellate
prosecutors, including the undersigned attorney, are working as
quickly as possible to complete as many briefs as possible as
quickly as possible while still addressing all the issues raised by
appellant’s as thoroughly as necessary to see that justice is
done on each appeal. Accounting for varying staffing levels, the
output of the division is not significantly different than it was
this time last year. However, because of the high workload per
prosecutor, as well as the greater length and complexity of
appeals being brought in this county, it often takes longer to
process all of the assigned cases, and more cases thereby
require multiple extension or more lengthy extensions before
the completion of each brief.
WHEREFORE, the State prays that this Court will grant the requested
extension until July 10, 2015.
Respectfully submitted,
/s/ Jessica A. Caird
JESSICA A. CAIRD
Assistant District Attorney
Harris County, Texas
1201 Franklin, Suite 600
Houston, Texas 77002-1923
(713) 755-5826
caird_jessica@dao.hctx.net
TBC No. 24000608
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I certify that I have requested that efile.txcourts.gov electronically serve a
copy of this motion to:
Thomas A. Martin
Attorney at Law
1018 Preston, Ste. 500
Houston, TX 77002-1824
tmartin@justice.com
/s/ Jessica A. Caird
Jessica A. Caird
Assistant District Attorney
Harris County, Texas
1201 Franklin, Suite 600
Houston, Texas 77002-1923
(713) 755-5826
caird_jessica@dao.hctx.net
TBC No. 24000608
Date: June 22, 2015