Pullis, John Peter

• Court: Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas
• Decided: October 8, 2014
• Docket: PD-0127-14
• Status: Published

Opinion

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rejected this claim in an unpublished opinion, on two grounds.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DELIVERED: October 8, 2014 DO NOT PUBLISH

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)).