EX PARTE GEORGE ROBERT RUST v. << (2011)

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Opinion By Justice Morris

On April 20, 2010, George Robert Rust filed an application for writ of habeas corpus seeking relief from an order deferring adjudication of guilt and placing him on community supervision for the offense of sexual performance of a child.   In the application, appellant asserted that he is actually innocent of the offense.   On May 18, 2010, the trial judge signed an order designating issues, and on October 22, 2010, the trial judge signed an order granting a witness use immunity.   Appellant filed a notice of appeal on December 14, 2010.   On May 10, 2011, the trial judge signed an order adopting the State's Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law. The Court received a loose copy of that order on May 19, 2011, but we have not received a supplemental clerk's record containing either the findings of fact, the order adopting the findings of fact, or an order ruling on the merits of appellant's habeas application.   Nor have we received a notice of appeal filed more recently than December 20, 2010.   Therefore, we sent a letter to the parties directing them to file letter briefs addressing our jurisdiction over this appeal.   Neither party responded.

As a general rule, an appellate court may consider appeals by criminal defendants only after conviction.  Wright v. State, 969 S.W.2d 588, 589 (Tex.App.—Dallas 1998, no pet.).   Intermediate appellate courts have no jurisdiction to review interlocutory orders absent express authority.   Ex parte Apolinar, 820 S.W.2d 792, 794 (Tex.Crim.App.1991);  Wright, 969 S.W.2d at 589.

The only orders contained in the record before this Court are not appealable orders.   While an order ruling on the merits of a habeas application would be appealable, see Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 11.072 (West 2005);  Tex.R.App. P. 31, appellant neither responded to our jurisdictional inquiry nor brought forward a record showing an appealable order has been signed by the judge.   Absent a judgment of conviction or other appealable order, we have no jurisdiction over the appeal.

We dismiss the appeal for want of jurisdiction.

JOSEPH B. MORRIS JUSTICE