Donald Ray Springs v. the State of Texas ( 2023 )

In the
Court of Appeals
Sixth Appellate District of Texas at Texarkana
No. 06-23-00136-CR
DONALD RAY SPRINGS, Appellant
V.
THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee
On Appeal from the 175th District Court
Bexar County, Texas
Trial Court No. 2019CR12744
Before Stevens, C.J., van Cleef and Rambin, JJ.
Memorandum Opinion by Justice Rambin
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Donald Ray Springs has filed an untimely notice of appeal from the trial court’s judgment
convicting him of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver and sentencing him
to twenty-five years’ imprisonment.1 We dismiss the appeal for want of jurisdiction.
Sentence was imposed in this matter on June 1, 2022, and Springs did not file a motion
for new trial. As a result, Springs’s notice of appeal was due on or before July 1, 2022. See TEX.
R. APP. P. 26.2(a)(1). Springs did not file his notice of appeal until June 1, 2023, well past the
deadline for filing such notice. Consequently, Springs’s attempt to appeal his conviction in this
matter was untimely. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has expressly held that, without a
timely filed notice of appeal, we cannot exercise jurisdiction over an appeal. See Olivo v. State,
918 S.W.2d 519, 522 (Tex. Crim. App. 1996); see also Slaton v. State, 981 S.W.2d 208, 209 n.3
(Tex. Crim. App. 1998) (per curiam).
By letter dated April 17, 2023, we notified Springs that his notice of appeal appeared to
be untimely and that the appeal was subject to dismissal for want of jurisdiction. We gave
Springs ten days to respond to our letter and to demonstrate how we have jurisdiction over the
appeal notwithstanding the noted defect. Although Springs did respond to our letter, he did not
demonstrate how we have jurisdiction over the appeal.
1
Originally appealed to the Fourth Court of Appeals, this case was transferred to this Court by the Texas Supreme
Court pursuant to its docket equalization efforts. See TEX. GOV’T CODE ANN. § 73.001. We find no difference
between the precedent of the Fourth Court of Appeals and that of this Court on the relevant issues in this case. See
TEX. R. APP. P. 41.3.
2
Because Springs did not timely file his notice of appeal, we dismiss the appeal for want
of jurisdiction.
Jeff Rambin
Justice
Date Submitted: August 4, 2023
Date Decided: August 7, 2023
Do Not Publish
3