Opinion
08-23-00116-CR
12-12-2024
JERRY-JACOB JAMES CORONA, Appellant, v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee.
Appeal from the 81st/218th Judicial District Court of Atascosa County, Texas (TC# 22-01-0002-CRA)
Before Alley, C.J., Palafox and Soto, JJ.
ORDER
PER CURIAM
On September 13, 2024, while Appellant Jerry-Jacob James Corona was represented by counsel, this court affirmed his conviction. Corona v. State, No. 08-23-00116-CR, 2024 WL 4189238, at *1 (Tex. App.-El Paso Sept. 13, 2024) (mem. op., not designated for publication). Following issuance of our opinion, this Court received several purported filings from Appellant directly, including a motion for rehearing, which the Court received, but did not file, because Appellant was still represented by counsel. During this same time frame, the Court became aware that Appellant's counsel intended to withdraw from the case (which we subsequently granted). Given these events, we extended on our own motion the time for Appellant to file a Motion for Rehearing until November 3, 2024.
Subsequently, this Court accepted Appellant's pro se motion for rehearing that the Court received on October 9, 2024 as timely filed. The motion for rehearing made assertions regarding prior events below that Appellant supported with citations to a "S.R.R." followed by a blank which we assume to be a Supplemental Reporter's Record that Appellant did not have. During this same time frame, Appellant was seeking access to the appellate record. He complained that he did not have a complete copy of all hearing transcripts necessary to prepare a motion for rehearing. Though most the record had previously been sent to Appellant much earlier in the appeal, we determined that a third supplemental reporter's record had not.
On October 28, we issued an order providing Appellant with a complete copy of the record in CD format. Our order specified that the record was to be made available to Appellant under the supervision of the Warden or designated custodian of records at Appellant's facility. When the November 3 deadline lapsed with no amended motion for rehearing, we issued a substituted memorandum of opinion on December 2, 2024 denying the motion but providing additional analysis for one of the issues raised in Appellant's October 9 motion. Corona v. State, No. 08-23-00116-CR, 2024 WL 4941322 (Tex. App.-El Paso Dec. 2, 2024, no pet. h.) (mem. op., not designated for publication). The same day that our opinion issued, this Court received a letter from Appellant in which he alleged that he was unable to review the CD containing the appellate record as provided in our October 28 order, because his unit was placed on lockdown-preventing him from filing an amended motion for rehearing before the November 3 deadline.
Appellant has now filed two additional documents. The first is a letter addressed to this Court which we have filed as a motion for rehearing of our December 2 substituted memorandum opinion. In the motion, Appellant states his original motion for rehearing was incomplete, and he reiterates that he has been unable to access the complete record as provided in our October 28 order.
The second document appears to be a courtesy copy of a petition for writ of mandamus addressed to the Court of Criminal Appeals wherein he asks the Court of Criminal Appeals to compel this Court to uphold our October 28 order and allow him to access the record so that he may file a motion for rehearing.
Under the circumstances presented here, where it appears Appellant has not had a reasonable opportunity to review the entire appellate record as provided in our October 28 order, and Appellant's counsel has been permitted to withdraw, we conclude that Appellant requires additional time so that he may amend his most recent motion for rehearing. We ORDER that the custodian of records of the Garza East Unit, 4304 Highway 202, Beeville, Texas 78101 (1) make the CD containing the appellate record available to Appellant, and (2) report to this Court, in writing, the date the record was made available. When confirmation that the record has been made available is received, this Court will issue additional orders setting a deadline for Appellant to file any amended motion for rehearing of our December 2 opinion.
IT IS SO ORDERED.