We have run into a situation. When Defendants enter a plea of No Contest at the JP Court on a Class C offense (usually via a 27.14 letter by attorney) and timely files a valid Appeal Bond, the JP Court immediately packs up the entire Court File and forwards it to the County Court of Appeals. Sometimes, the JP Court hasn't even received the Complaint from the ticketing agency. Other times, the Complaint has been received, but it has some fundamental and fatal defect (e.g., No signature from Affiant, Not properly Notarized, Defendant's Name completely incorrect).

Our County Court of Appeals refuses to accept these filings and sends them back to the JP Court for "Correction" or Dismissal. Our JPs take the position that they can't do anything to the case at that point because they lost Jurisdiction as soon as the case was properly Appealed. This leaves the cases in Limbo.

Who is right?

One other point to consider is that under 27.14(d), if the Defendant pleads No Contest, a copy of the Citation suffices to serve as a Complaint.

Also to be considered is CCP 45.043

If they plead guilty or no contest at the JP/Muni level than no formal complaint is necessary for the appeal to be filed and set on docket at the County level. Art. 27.14 CCP says that a formal complaint is not required until the actual day of trial de novo at the County level, and even then failure to have one is not reversible error.

Read, State v. Shaw (App. 3 Dist. 1992) 822 S.W.2d 807.

Also, by pleading guilty or no contest they waive all defects in the complaint if one has already been drafted at the JP/Muni level. And besides, you can amend the Complaint at anytime up until the day of trial at the County level.

Read Nam Hoai Le v. State, Tex.App.-Corpus Christi,1998.

You need to educate your clerks/judges and force them to accept these filings since they are perfectly valid.

How are you guys handling the appeal bonds that are posted before the JP judge ever signs the judgment? We get them all the time, where the JP court notifies the defense attorney what the appeal bond amount will be, the bond is posted, but the judge signs off on the judgment at a later date. It appears on paper that the appeal bond is untimely (on the early side). On the other end are the cases in which the JP court never properly notifies the attorney until some date past 30 days past the judgment what the appeal bond amount is going to be, and the appeal bond appears to be well beyond 30 days in which you would expect it to be posted. I know it's 30 days from when the notice is presumed to be received, but in the court's files on the appeal, there is no documentation of when the notice is provided to defense counsel, and some of the JP's aren't even mailing their notices as they are required to do, so there is no documentation in writing of the date that the defense attorney is notified of the appeal bond amount. It's a mess!