OK I lost a motion to supress and filed my notice of appeal in 18 days. 3 days later I filed a Request for FOF and COL. The judge denied my Request as untimely. The defense atty argued based on TRCivP 296, my Request is too late. I can't find a similar provision for requesting FOF/COL in criminal trials. Besides the fact that what the Def Atty argued are Rules of Civil Procedure, the CCA in State v. Cullen, 195 S.W.3d 696 used the TRCivP as a guide to "when" a judge must provide FOF/COL (but the court didn't state that a Request for FOF/COL outside 20 days is untimely). So is the same civil timely deadline in R 296 now the criminal deadline?

We had a similar issue here. We filed a motion to abate the appeal and requested an order from the court of appeals to the trial court to prepare them. The trial court prepared them shortly thereafter.

JM

The issue that remains is when are FOF timely requested in criminal cases? As the civil rules were used for guidance in Cullen, I suppose we can rely on Rule 296 stating when they are timely requested in civil cases--just as the CCA relied on Rule 297 for giving the trial court 20 days to prepare them.