Chudej v. State
Chudej v. State
Opinion of the Court
OPINION
Kevin Lee Chudej appeals from an order issued under section 501.014(e) of the Government Code directing the Department of Criminal Justice to withdraw funds from his inmate trust account for payment of court costs and fees incurred in connection with his felony conviction. Because this is a criminal law matter and because no statute authorizes such an appeal, we will dismiss the appeal for want of jurisdiction.
This Court has appellate jurisdiction in a criminal case only when expressly provided by law. Kelly v. State, 151 S.W.3d 683, 685 (Tex.App.-Waco 2004, no pet.); see also Rushing v. State, 85 S.W.3d 283, 285 (Tex.Crim.App. 2002) (right to appeal “is derived entirely from statute”). No statute authorizes an appeal from an order under section 501.014(e). See Gross v. State, No. 07-06-00489-CR, — S.W.3d —, —, 2007 WL 2089365, at *2 (Tex.App.-Amarillo July 23, 2007, no pet.); contra Abdullah v. State, 211 S.W.3d 938 (Tex.App.-Texarkana 2007, no pet.) (addressing merits of such an appeal).
Therefore, we dismiss the appeal for want of jurisdiction.
Chief Justice GRAY dissenting.
. Chudej is not necessarily without a remedy. See In re Keeling, 227 S.W.3d 391 (Tex.App.Waco 2007, orig. proceeding).
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
At this stage of the proceedings we do not know if this is a criminal or civil proceeding. We do not know that because we do not know what Chudej is complaining about. For that reason, if no other, dismissal for want of jurisdiction is premature. I respectfully dissent.
Thus, the critical issue we must first address is whether the defendant is complaining about the amount of cost or the procedure by which it is being garnished. These are two distinct complaints an inmate could be making in these proceedings. First, the complaint could be about the amount of cost being assessed. Thus it appears such a complaint would be an attack on the manner in which the amount of cost assessed was determined and made part of the criminal judgment. Second, the complaint could be regarding the manner in which an inmate’s account was garnished for the cost as assessed in the inmate’s criminal judgment. It appeared to me that this issue would determine the characterization of these proceedings as criminal or civil, as well as determine the forms of appellate review that might be available.
Because a majority of the Tenth Court of Appeals went another direction, this issue was never joined by the parties in this proceeding, or in any of the prior proceedings, and neither briefed nor decid
Based upon what we have as a record in this proceeding, we are, at this time, unable to properly analyze the complaint and, thus, unable to determine the true nature of the proceeding as either criminal or civil; and thus we are currently unable to properly determine what, if any, remedy might be available for judicial review. Because of these inabilities, the disposition of this proceeding is premature, and I respectfully dissent from the dismissal of this proceeding for want of jurisdiction of an appeal of a criminal proceeding.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Kevin Lee CHUDEJ, Appellant, v. the STATE of Texas, Appellee
- Cited By
- 6 cases
- Status
- Published