The trial court granted the Defendants Motion to Quash Indictment. I am appealing the ruling. Do I have to release the Defendant pending the App Court decision, or does the Appeal preserve the Bond????

It appears the defendant may continue to be held subject to bail, especially upon your motion (see art. 28.05, C.C.P.) In the one case where I appealed such an order, the court promptly changed the bail to personal recognizance. I might add that after 3 years (when the mandate issued affirming the quashal order) and a new indictment was returned, we are still looking for the defendant.

...if he'd just go away. Far, far away. We did release him on personal bond, with conditions: quit acting like a horse's $&%. No way can he live up to it. It really took that long to get a ruling on your indictment? I thought that was supposed to get priority treatement????

Obviously, to answer your query I have to tell a long story. There are some lessons to be learned from this story about state's appeals and other things, so I will share it in the language of the State's PDR (denied in 2001): "Appellee was indicted by the Comanche County Grand Jury on April 21, 1997 for the offense of engaging in organized criminal activity by committing the offense of burglary. Sec. 71.02 (a)(1), (b) of the Penal Code. He filed a motion to set aside the indictment. An amended motion was filed on May 15, 1997 and considered by the Court on the same day. The trial judge ordered the indictment be set aside. The State appealed under art. 44.01 (a)(1) of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The Eastland Court of Appeals found that the indictment properly alleged the offense and set aside the order of the trial court and remanded the case for trial in an opinion delivered on November 25, 1998. See 981 S.W.2d 481. The Appellee filed a petition for discretionary review by this court, which was granted. An opinion was simultaneously issued (without the benefit of full briefs or oral argument) remanding the case back to the Court of Appeals to be reconsidered in light of Nguyen v. State, 1 S.W.3d 694 (Tex.Crim.App. 1999). 9 S.W.3d 835.
In a terse unpublished opinion delivered September 21, 2000, the Court of Appeals has now ruled that, because 'the State must establish that persons engaged in organized criminal activity were involved in more than one activity', the trial court correctly quashed the indictment. The State timely filed a motion for rehearing on October 4, 2000, but this was denied by the Court of Appeals on November 16, 2000, without any further opinion."

Judge for yourself how the case was "prioritized". With the benefit of hindsight it is obvious the State's attorney should never have appealed (just re-indicted for the burglary in 1997). Certainly that course was called for in 1999. It was just plain dumb to think I could (or needed to)convince anyone that the State does not need to plead evidentiary facts in an indictment, that an indictment should not be quashed for lack of evidence, or that Nguyen established no rules concerning the pleading of OCA. I wish you better luck and speed with your appeal.