Donny Ray Geter v. the State of Texas

• Court: Court of Appeals of Texas
• Decided: February 8, 2023
• Docket: 05-23-00026-CR
• Status: Published

Opinion

Order entered February 8, 2023

In The Court of Appeals Fifth District of Texas at Dallas

No. 05-23-00026-CR

DONNY RAY GETER, Appellant

V.

THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

On Appeal from the 282nd Judicial District Court Dallas County, Texas Trial Court Cause No. F21-75021-S

ORDER

On January 17, 2023, Official Court Reporter Lisa V. Jackson filed the

reporter’s record in this appeal. The filing did not, however, include copies of

State’s Exhibits 43, 43A, 49, and 53.

Jackson filed with the reporter’s record a request in which she described

State’s Exhibit 43 as a blu-ray disk of a cellphone extraction or “phone dump” and

State’s Exhibit 43A as a copy of State’s Exhibit 43 placed on a flash drive.

According to Jackson, the phone dump recorded in State’s Exhibit 43A “includes PDFs, images, and hyperlinks that take you to the Internet to view.” Jackson

explains she is “aware that PDFs should be printed and uploaded in TAMES as a

Volume; however, the pages are voluminous and because of the hyperlinks and

images I will not be able to upload this one exhibit.” She requested permission to

file the flash drive as physical media without uploading its contents into TAMES.

On January 23, 2023, Jackson filed with the Court three physical items: the

blu-ray disc labeled as State’s Exhibit 43, a flash drive labeled as State’s Exhibit

43A, and a compact disc labeled as State’s exhibit 49. The items were

accompanied by cover sheets. The cover sheet for exhibit 49 states: “STATE’S

EXHIBIT NO. 49 UNABLE TO UPLOAD 1. Animation file too large to upload.”

The cover sheets for State’s Exhibits 43 and 43A identify the contents as a “phone

dump” from appellant’s phone without providing any further explanation for why

the items must be submitted as physical media.

Jackson offered no explanation for why State’s Exhibit 53 was not filed.

According to the reporter’s record, State’s Exhibit 53 is a compact disc with

recordings of telephone calls to 911.

It is the court reporter’s duty to file the reporter’s record, including all

exhibits, in an electronic format through the Texas Appeals Management and E-

filing System records submission portal (TAMES). See TEX. R. APP. P. App. C, R.

2; Unif. Format Manual for Tex. Reporter’s Recs. § 8 (amended June 28, 2010),

–2– https://www.txcourts.gov/media/244178/Uniform-Format-Manual-20100701.pdf.

When an exhibit exceeds the maximum file size to pass through the TAMES

portal, the court reporter must separate the exhibit file into multiple smaller files

that meet the TAMES portal’s limits. See Uniform Format Manual at §§ 8.9, 8.10;

Off. of Ct. Admin. TAMES RSP User Guide 8 (2013),

https://rsp.txcourts.gov/training/TAMES-RSP-User-Guide.pdf. Physical media can

be sent to the appellate court if the appellate court orders the physical item filed.

See Uniform Format Manuel at §§ 8.9. 8.10.

In this case, Jackson has provided little information about the exhibits she

has not uploaded to TAMES. The explanation she has provided does not explain

why the exhibits cannot be broken up into smaller files and uploaded to TAMES.

Furthermore, the Court did not request or grant permission for the filing of

physical media.

Accordingly, we ORDER Official Court Reporter Lisa V. Jackson to file

into TAMES, within THIRTY DAYS, either State’s Exhibit 43 or 43A, whichever

is easier to upload, breaking the exhibit up into separate files as needed to upload

into TAMES. We further ORDER Ms. Jackson to file into TAMES, within

THIRTY DAYS, the recordings in State’s Exhibit 53.

The Court will accept as physical media the compact disc containing State’s

Exhibit 49.

–3– We DIRECT the Clerk to transmit copies of this order to Lisa V. Jackson,

official court reporter, 282nd Judicial District Court; and to counsel for the parties.

/s/ ROBERT D. BURNS, III CHIEF JUSTICE

–4–