Henry Demond Dorsey v. State

ACCEPTED 14-14-00718-cr FOURTEENTH COURT OF APPEALS HOUSTON, TEXAS 6/29/2015 7:32:15 6/22/2015 9:41:09 AM CHRISTOPHER PRINE CLERK No. 14-14-00718-CR In the FILED IN 14th COURT OF APPEALS Court of Appeals HOUSTON, TEXAS For the 6/29/2015 9:41:09 AM Fourteenth District of Texas CHRISTOPHER A. PRINE Clerk At Houston  No. 1370868 In the 182nd District Court Of Harris County, Texas  HENRY DEMOND DORSEY Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS Appellee  STATE’S MOTION FOR EXTENSION OF TIME TO FILE BRIEF  To the Honorable Court of Appeals: The State of Texas, pursuant to Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure 2 and 10.5, moves for an extension of time in which to file its appellate brief. The following facts are relevant: 1. The appellant was indicted for murder. Appellant pled not guilty, but a jury found him guilty of the charged offense. The jury assessed sentence at 55 years confinement in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Appellant filed timely notice of appeal. 2. Appellant filed an appellate brief on March 23, 2015. 3. The State’s appellate brief is due on May 22, 2015. 4. This is the State’s third request for an extension in this case. The State’s response has taken longer than expected because she was unexpectedly set for oral argument in Patrick Earvin v. State, No. 14- 14-00702-CR & 14-14-00703-CR. She had to cease work on this brief to prepare for arguments taking roughly a week of time she had expected to devote to this case. 5. The State requests this extension of time in which to file its brief, and the undersigned attorney believes that a brief can be filed by July 10, 2015. She has begun review of the lengthy record, but has not been able to complete the necessary reading. Several more days of record review are required before she can write the brief. 6. The following facts are relied upon to show good cause for an extension of time to allow the State to file its brief: a. At present, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office employees 15 appellate prosecutors, but one is presently deployed on active military service and unable to carry a caseload, and the chief is often required to perform so many administrative tasks he cannot carry a caseload. Accordingly, the remaining members of the appellate division are currently assigned a caseload of approximately 62 active cases showing an average of 4.7 briefs per prosecutor. b. The attorney to whom this case is assigned has six outstanding briefs assigned to her including this one, one of which was recently reinstated after abatement. c. Between the time that the appellant filed his brief in this case and this State’s motion for extension, the undersigned prepared for oral argument which she intends to present today, and filed the following written documents, namely: the brief on Patrick Earvin, No. 14-14-00702-CR and 703-CR, William Dixon, No. 14-14-00510-CR, Gerald Darby, No. 14-14-00687-CR, and Penton v. State, No. 14-14-00406-CR, she also prepared proposed findings and conclusions in Penton, as well as filing a lengthy brief on Uvukansi v. State, No. 01-14-00527-CR. She prepared a bench brief on a pending trial matter in State v. Alas, No. 1437254 for prosecutors in the 338th District Court. And she attended the 2015 Conference on Criminal Appeals. d. The workload of this prosecutor is not out of the ordinary in the appellate division of the Harris County District Attorney’s Office. e. In addition to its assignments in responding to appellate briefs, the appellate division of the Harris County District Attorney’s Office also answers questions from trial prosecutors. These questions frequently occur in the middle of or immediately before trial, and therefore other work must be put aside to answer these pressing questions. Harris County has 25 Criminal District Courts and 15 County Criminal Courts at Law, and this particular prosecutor is tasked with answering questions related to Texas Code of Criminal Procedure article 39.14 regarding discovery changes, is one of two prosecutors tasked with answering any juvenile law related questions, and answers questions from five felony courts in addition to the three juvenile courts. As part of those tasks she handled a number of questions during the trial of Victor Alas in the 338th District Court that took a number of hours away from her briefing duties requiring expedited responses to issues that developed during trial. f. The Harris County District Attorney’s Office Appellate Division is experiencing a significant workload at present. Appellate prosecutors, including the undersigned attorney, are working as quickly as possible to complete as many briefs as possible as quickly as possible while still addressing all the issues raised by appellant’s as thoroughly as necessary to see that justice is done on each appeal. Accounting for varying staffing levels, the output of the division is not significantly different than it was this time last year. However, because of the high workload per prosecutor, as well as the greater length and complexity of appeals being brought in this county, it often takes longer to process all of the assigned cases, and more cases thereby require multiple extension or more lengthy extensions before the completion of each brief. WHEREFORE, the State prays that this Court will grant the requested extension until July 10, 2015. Respectfully submitted, /s/ Jessica A. Caird JESSICA A. CAIRD Assistant District Attorney Harris County, Texas 1201 Franklin, Suite 600 Houston, Texas 77002-1923 (713) 755-5826 caird_jessica@dao.hctx.net TBC No. 24000608 CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE I certify that I have requested that efile.txcourts.gov electronically serve a copy of this motion to: Thomas A. Martin Attorney at Law 1018 Preston, Ste. 500 Houston, TX 77002-1824 tmartin@justice.com /s/ Jessica A. Caird Jessica A. Caird Assistant District Attorney Harris County, Texas 1201 Franklin, Suite 600 Houston, Texas 77002-1923 (713) 755-5826 caird_jessica@dao.hctx.net TBC No. 24000608 Date: June 22, 2015