IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS
OF TEXAS
NO. PD-0127-14
JOHN PETER PULLIS, Appellant
v.
THE STATE OF TEXAS
ON APPELLANT’S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW
FROM THE TENTH COURT OF APPEALS
MCLENNAN COUNTY
P ER C URIAM. M EYERS, J., dissented.
OPINION
The appellant was convicted of violating a protective order. Because he had
purportedly been convicted twice before for this same offense, he was convicted of a third-
degree felony. We granted the appellant’s petition for discretionary review in which he
contended that the court of appeals erred to uphold his conviction because one of the prior
convictions lacked finality because it was on appeal, and that, without an allegation of two
valid prior convictions, the indictment against him failed to allege a felony offense and
Pullis — 2
therefore did not confer subject-matter jurisdiction on the district court. The court of appeals
rejected this claim in an unpublished opinion, on two grounds. First, it concluded that the
particular district court in this case had subject-matter jurisdiction over both felony and
misdemeanor cases, by virtue of Section 24.120(b–1) of the Texas Government Code, so that
the State’s pleading invoked its subject-matter jurisdiction whether or not it alleged a felony
offense.1 Second, and in any event, the court of appeals held, the appellant may not raise
such a claim in a motion to quash the indictment.2 Having examined the record and the
briefs, we conclude that our decision to grant discretionary review in this case was
improvident. We therefore dismiss the appellant’s petition for discretionary review.
DELIVERED: October 8, 2014
DO NOT PUBLISH
1
Pullis v. State, 2014 WL 31423 (Tex. App.—Waco, delivered Jan. 2, 2014), at *1 (citing T EX.
G OV’T C ODE § 24.120(b–1)).
2
Id. at *2 (citing State v. Rosenbaum, 910 S.W.2d 934, 948 (Tex. Crim. App. 1994) (dissenting
op. adopted on reh’g)).