Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
This memorandum opinion concerns an appeal brought by the State of Texas, identified as the appellant, against Laquante Porterfield, the appellee. The appeal came to the Texas Court of Appeals, Third District, at Austin, from the County Court at Law No. 8 of Travis County. The underlying trial-court matter is identified by number C-1-CR-24-202764, and the opinion names the Honorable Carlos Humberto Barrera as the judge presiding in that court. The appellate proceeding is docketed as No. 03-26-00654-CR.
The two-page opinion does not describe the underlying criminal charge, the events giving rise to the prosecution, the proceedings in the county court at law, or the ruling from which the State appealed. It also does not identify any substantive legal issue that the State intended to present. The procedural event addressed by the court of appeals is the State’s filing of a motion to dismiss its own appeal. The opinion states that the motion was signed by the State’s attorney on behalf of the State.
The Court’s Holding
The court granted the State’s motion and dismissed the appeal. The disposition is expressly stated as “Dismissed on Appellant’s Motion.” The court did not announce a ruling on the merits of any underlying issue, and the opinion supplies no analysis of the trial court’s proceedings or of any dispute between the parties beyond the dismissal motion.
The court cited Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 42.2(a), describing it as authorizing an appellate court to dismiss an appeal on the appellant’s motion at any time before the court’s decision. It also cited State v. Mills, 994 S.W.2d 410, 410 (Tex. App.—Waco 1999, no pet.), for the proposition that Rule 42.2 applies to appeals filed by the State. That citation connects the general dismissal authority to the posture here, in which the State itself was the appellant seeking dismissal.
In addition to granting the motion and dismissing the appeal, the court directed the Clerk of the Court to issue mandate with the judgment of dismissal. For that direction, the opinion cited Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure 18.1(c) and 42.2(a). The opinion was filed October 30, 2026, before Justices Triana, Crump, and Ellis, and its signature block names Maggie Ellis, Justice. It is marked “Do Not Publish.”
Key Takeaways
- The State of Texas was the appellant, and the court dismissed its appeal on the State’s own motion rather than after a merits determination.
- The motion was signed by the State’s attorney on the State’s behalf, a fact the opinion states directly before setting out the governing procedural authority.
- Rule 42.2(a) was cited as permitting dismissal on an appellant’s motion at any time before the court’s decision; State v. Mills was cited for the rule’s application to State appeals.
- The court directed the Clerk to issue mandate with the judgment of dismissal, citing Rules 18.1(c) and 42.2(a).
Why It Matters
The opinion is a concise procedural disposition confirming the appellate court’s handling of a State appellant’s request to end its own appeal. Its stated basis is the dismissal authority in Rule 42.2(a), together with Mills for the application of that rule to appeals filed by the State. The opinion does not articulate a broader rule about criminal liability, trial-court procedure, or the merits of the underlying case.
For attorneys tracking appellate practice, the document identifies the parties, courts, docket numbers, presiding trial judge, panel, filing date, and mandate direction, while leaving the underlying factual and legal record undescribed. No additional public reasoning appears in the supplied opinion, so its significance should be confined to the voluntary-dismissal procedure and the resulting dismissal and mandate instructions.