Court Filings

The court dismissed Brenton Autwavious Smith’s appeal from his murder conviction because the trial court certified this was a plea-bargain case in which the defendant has no right of appeal. The appellate court gave Smith a month to show grounds to continue the appeal after notifying him of the certification, but he did not respond. Because the trial-court certification showing no right to appeal was part of the record and Smith had waived appeal rights in his plea paperwork, the appellate court dismissed the appeal without reaching the merits.

The court dismissed a petition for a writ of mandamus filed by David Disraeli challenging a justice court’s refusal to enforce an arbitration clause. The Third Court of Appeals concluded it lacks jurisdiction to issue mandamus against a justice of the peace or justice court unless issuance is necessary to preserve the appellate court’s jurisdiction, and the relator did not show that necessity. Because the jurisdictional prerequisite was not met, the court dismissed the mandamus petition and all pending motions as moot.

The Fourth Court of Appeals in San Antonio granted a joint motion to dismiss and dismissed a petition for writ of mandamus filed by Amazon.com, Inc., Amazon Logistics, Inc., Amazon Flex, and Amazon.com Services, LLC. The petition was originally filed March 10, 2026, and the court had set an April 7, 2026 deadline for responses. After the parties filed a joint motion to dismiss, the court granted the motion under the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure and dismissed the mandamus proceeding. No merits decision was reached.

The City of Edinburg filed a petition for writ of mandamus claiming the trial court abused its discretion by freezing discovery deadlines. The city later moved to withdraw the petition because the parties reached an agreement about the disputed discovery, rendering the mandamus request moot. The court treated the withdrawal as a motion to dismiss, found the matter moot under controlling authority, and dismissed the petition for writ of mandamus.

The Court of Appeals for the Thirteenth District dismissed Genie Delia Cavazos’s pro se appeal for want of prosecution after she repeatedly failed to comply with the clerk’s requests to pay the filing fee and to cure defects in her notice of appeal. The court sent five notices between October 28, 2025 and March 19, 2026 but received no response. Because Cavazos did not diligently prosecute the appeal or follow procedural rules, the court dismissed the appeal and denied the appellee’s motion to dismiss as moot.

The court dismissed Gil Rojas III’s appeal because his conviction and thirty-year sentence resulted from a plea-bargain in which the trial court certified he had no right to appeal. The appellate clerk’s record contained the Rule 25.2(a)(2) certification and the written plea agreement showing the sentence did not exceed the agreed recommendation. Because the record contained no pretrial written motion preserved for appeal, no trial-court permission to appeal, and no amended certification granting appeal rights, the court concluded it must dismiss the appeal under Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 25.2(d).