Opinion
No. 06-15-00148-CR
04-06-2016
MICHAEL PAUL HENDRIX, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee
On Appeal from the 5th District Court Cass County, Texas
Trial Court No. 2014-F-00198 Before Morriss, C.J., Moseley and Burgess, JJ. ORDER
The clerk's record in this appeal was filed October 20, 2015, and the reporter's record was filed February 2, 2016, making the appellant's brief originally due March 3, 2016. This Court extended the briefing deadline by thirty days on the motion of Hendrix' appellate counsel, Edwin E. Buckner, Jr., resulting in the most recent due date of April 4, 2016. Buckner has now filed a second motion seeking an additional sixty-day extension of the briefing deadline.
To justify the requested sixty-day extension, counsel stated, simply, that he was "engaged in hearings this week" in Cass County and that his legal assistant was "on vacation during this week." It is unclear precisely what time frame to which counsel was referring with the phrase "this week," but it is abundantly clear that these statements do not provide the Court with a reasonable explanation of counsel's need for any extension of time, much less a sixty-day extension of time. As we have informed counsel before, this Court interprets Rule 10.5(b)(1) of the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure as requiring counsel to provide specific factual information to justify a requested extension, including the cause numbers of cases in which other briefs were filed; the dates they were filed; the dates, cause numbers, and courts of matters scheduled for trial; the exact dates of trial (if known); the expected duration of trial; etc. Broad, general statements do not provide the required facts and are not adequate to meet the requirements of the rule. See TEX. R. APP. P. 10.5(b)(1).
All future motions to extend time must contain factual, case-specific information adequate to justify the request, or they will be summarily denied. In this instance, we have reviewed counsel's second motion to extend the briefing deadline as well as the appellate record in this case, and we find no compelling information to convince us that further extension of the filing deadline is warranted. Consequently, counsel's second motion to extend time to file Hendrix' appellate brief is overruled.
We order Buckner to file Hendrix' appellate brief with this Court on or before May 4, 2016.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
BY THE COURT Date: April 6, 2016