The Texas courts of appeals are the fifteen intermediate appellate courts that sit between the trial courts and the state’s two highest courts, and if you lost at trial, one of them is almost certainly your next stop. They do not retry your case or hear new witnesses. They read the written record from below and decide whether the trial judge got the law right. Most appeals have to be started within 30 days of the judgment, and missing that window generally ends the appeal before it begins.
How the Fifteen Districts Are Organized
Texas Government Code § 22.201 divides the state into fifteen appellate districts, each anchored in a specific city.1State of Texas. Texas Government Code Section 22.220 – Civil Jurisdiction The seats range from major metros like Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin to smaller cities like Texarkana, Eastland, and Amarillo. Houston has two separate courts, the First and the Fourteenth, that share the same ten-county territory, so cases from Harris County and its neighbors can land in either one.
Court size varies by statute, from three justices on the smallest courts to thirteen on the Dallas-based Fifth Court of Appeals.2Texas Judicial Branch. Courts of Appeals No matter how many justices sit on a court, cases are decided by rotating three-justice panels. The panel membership shifts regularly, so no fixed trio always sits together. When a decision is particularly significant or conflicts with another panel’s ruling, the full court can rehear the case en banc, meaning every justice on that court participates.3Texas Judicial Branch. Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure – Rule 49 A majority of the en banc court can also order reconsideration on its own before the judgment becomes final.
The newest court, the Austin-based Fifteenth Court of Appeals, works differently. Its district covers every county in Texas, but its jurisdiction is narrow.4State of Texas. Texas Government Code Section 22.2151 – Fifteenth Court of Appeals It hears civil cases brought by or against the state, state agencies, state universities, and state employees acting officially, along with constitutional challenges where the attorney general is a party and appeals from the Texas Business Court. Family law, personal injury, wrongful death, eminent domain, and civil asset forfeiture cases still go to the geographically appropriate court even when a state entity is involved.1State of Texas. Texas Government Code Section 22.220 – Civil Jurisdiction
What These Courts Can Review
Article V, § 6 of the Texas Constitution gives the courts of appeals broad authority over all cases within their districts that district courts or county courts have jurisdiction to hear.5Justia. Texas Constitution Article 5 Section 6 – Courts of Appeals; Terms of Justices; Clerks That covers both civil and criminal matters. On the civil side, Government Code § 22.220 sets a minimum: the amount in controversy or the judgment must exceed $250, excluding interest and costs.1State of Texas. Texas Government Code Section 22.220 – Civil Jurisdiction In practice that captures almost everything, from small contract disputes to complex commercial litigation. Criminal appeals cover the full range of offenses.
One major exception: death penalty cases. A defendant sentenced to death receives an automatic direct appeal to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, bypassing the intermediate courts entirely.6Office of the Texas Attorney General. Capital Punishment Appellate Guidebook For every other criminal conviction and for all qualifying civil disputes, the court of appeals is the required first step before you can reach the state’s highest courts.
Deadlines for Filing a Notice of Appeal
The clock starts when the trial judge signs the judgment or, in criminal cases, when the sentence is imposed. These deadlines are jurisdictional. Courts of appeals regularly dismiss late-filed appeals regardless of the merits.
Civil cases
You generally have 30 days after the judgment is signed to file a notice of appeal. That extends to 90 days if any party timely files a motion for new trial, a motion to modify the judgment, a motion to reinstate under the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, or a request for findings of fact and conclusions of law.7Texas Judicial Branch. Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure – Rule 26.1 Accelerated appeals have a shorter 20-day deadline. Restricted appeals, available if you did not participate in the trial, allow up to six months.
Criminal cases
A defendant must file within 30 days after sentencing. A timely motion for new trial pushes that to 90 days after sentencing.8Texas Judicial Branch. Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure – Rule 26.2 The state, when it has a right to appeal, must file within 20 days.
What the Notice of Appeal Must Include
The notice itself is a short document, but mistakes in it cause delays. You need the trial court cause number, the full legal names of all parties, the identity of the court that entered the judgment, and the date the final judgment or order was signed. The notice must clearly state the party’s desire to appeal the specific judgment identified in the filing.
Criminal defendants face an extra requirement that catches many people off guard. The trial court must provide a certification of the defendant’s right to appeal in every case resulting in a judgment of guilt. In plea-bargain cases, the defendant can only appeal matters raised by written motion before trial or issues where the trial court has given permission.9Texas Judicial Branch. Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure Without the certification, the appeal goes nowhere.
Most courts also require a docketing statement providing details such as whether the case was tried to a jury or a judge. The Office of Court Administration and individual appellate court websites provide standardized forms.
Building the Appellate Record
The appellate court can only consider what is in the official record. The record has two parts, prepared by different people.
The clerk’s record is compiled by the trial court clerk and contains the relevant documents from the case file: pleadings, the docket sheet, all orders and judgments, the notice of appeal, and any items specifically designated by the parties. General requests like “all papers filed in the case” are supposed to be ignored, so you need to identify the specific documents you want included. If something important gets left out, you or the appellate court can direct the clerk to prepare a supplemental record.
The reporter’s record is the court reporter’s transcription of the proceedings from stenographic notes or electronic recordings. The appellant must submit a written request specifying which portions to include. If you tried a two-week case but your appeal only concerns a single evidentiary ruling, you may only need the transcript from that hearing, though strategic choices about what to include require careful judgment.
Court reporter fees for preparing the transcript can be substantial, especially in long trials. These costs are separate from the appellate court’s filing fees and must be paid to the reporter. If you cannot afford them, a Statement of Inability to Afford Payment of Court Costs may cover this expense as well.
Electronic Filing and Court Fees
Attorneys in civil cases must file electronically through the eFileTexas system, the electronic filing manager established by the Office of Court Administration. Attorneys in criminal cases must also e-file unless they obtain permission from the appellate court for good cause. Unrepresented parties in both civil and criminal cases may use the system but are not required to.10Texas Judicial Branch. Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure – Rule 9.2 Documents filed under seal or subject to a pending motion to seal cannot be submitted electronically.
An appeal from a district or county court costs $205 to file, with smaller fees for motions and original proceedings.11Texas Judicial Branch. Fees for Supreme Court of Texas, Courts of Appeals, and MDL If you cannot afford the cost, you can file a Statement of Inability to Afford Payment of Court Costs in lieu of the fee.
Standards of Review
Not every argument gets the same scrutiny on appeal. The standard of review tells you how much deference the appellate court gives the trial judge’s decision, and it often determines whether you have a realistic shot at reversal.
- De novo review. The appellate court looks at pure legal questions fresh, with no deference. Whether a statute applies to your situation, or whether probable cause existed for a search, gets this treatment. When a question mixes law and facts, the court accepts the trial judge’s factual findings if the record supports them, but independently decides whether those facts satisfy the legal standard.
- Abuse of discretion. Many trial court rulings, especially on evidence and procedural matters, are reviewed only to see whether the judge acted without reference to any guiding rules and principles, or made an arbitrary or unreasonable decision. The fact that an appellate justice would have ruled differently is not enough. This is a high bar.
- Sufficiency of the evidence. When challenging a jury’s verdict, the appellate court asks whether a reasonable factfinder could have reached that conclusion based on the record, presuming the jury resolved disputed evidence in favor of its verdict. A reversal requires the evidence to be so weak that no reasonable person could have found the way the jury did.
A trial judge’s legal error gets a hard second look. A judgment call on whether to admit a piece of evidence gets enormous deference. Appeals are often won or lost on which standard applies.
Briefing and Oral Argument
After the record is filed, the real work begins. The appellant’s brief is due 30 days after whichever was filed later, the clerk’s record or the reporter’s record. In accelerated appeals, the deadline shrinks to 20 days. The appellee then has 30 days after the appellant’s brief to respond, or 20 days in an accelerated appeal. The appellant may file an optional reply.
The brief is where you make your legal arguments. You identify the issues, explain what the trial court got wrong, cite the relevant law, and point to the specific parts of the record that support your position. A brief that fails to direct the court to the evidence in the record is functionally the same as having no appeal at all. The court is not going to dig through a thousand-page transcript looking for an error you mentioned in passing.
Oral argument is not automatic. Some courts grant it in most cases; others rarely do. Either party can request it, and the court decides whether hearing from the lawyers would help. Many appeals are decided entirely on the written briefs.
Possible Outcomes
When the court of appeals issues its judgment, it has several options:
- Affirm. The trial court’s judgment stands, in full or in part.
- Modify and affirm. The court corrects an error in the judgment, such as adjusting a damages figure, and affirms the corrected version.
- Reverse and render. The court reverses the trial court and enters the judgment that should have been entered below.
- Reverse and remand. The court sends the case back to the trial court for further proceedings, which may include a new trial.
- Vacate and dismiss. The court throws out the trial court’s judgment and dismisses the entire case.
- Dismiss the appeal. The court tosses the appeal itself, usually for jurisdictional or procedural defects.
Remands are common because an error at trial often means the jury never considered the case under the correct legal framework.
Taking the Case Higher
A court of appeals decision is not necessarily the last word. In civil cases, the losing party can file a petition for review with the Texas Supreme Court. Review is discretionary; the Supreme Court picks the cases it wants, and it tends to focus on issues where courts of appeals have reached conflicting conclusions or where the legal question has statewide importance. A motion for rehearing in the court of appeals is not a prerequisite for filing the petition.
In criminal cases, the equivalent is a petition for discretionary review filed with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The petition must be filed within 30 days after the court of appeals renders its judgment, or within 30 days after the last timely motion for rehearing is overruled. It takes at least four votes from the judges to grant review, and the Court of Criminal Appeals refuses the vast majority of petitions.
For both civil and criminal matters, exhausting your options at the court of appeals level is generally expected before asking the highest courts to step in. Skipping the intermediate court without a compelling reason usually gets your case sent back down.