Texas Sixth Court of Appeals

The Texas Sixth Court of Appeals sits in Texarkana, at the northeast edge of the state. It belongs to a set of fourteen intermediate appellate courts that hear appeals from Texas trial courts. Three justices staff the Court of Appeals here, and they decide cases in panels drawn from that small bench. A chief justice leads, two colleagues sit alongside, and the same judges recur across civil and criminal dockets. Texas Government Code section 22.201 fixes the district and the counties inside it, a stretch of Northeast Texas that runs from the Red River south, with the courthouse in Bowie County.

Voters choose each member of the court. Under the Texas Constitution, article V, section 6, a justice on a court of appeals runs in a partisan election within the district and serves a six year term. A candidate must have practiced law or sat as a judge of a court of record for at least ten years. When a seat opens between elections, the governor appoints a replacement, and that appointee later faces the voters. This keeps the Court of Appeals tied to the region whose disputes it decides.

Below the court sit the trial courts of the district. District courts handle felonies, larger civil suits, divorce and custody, and title fights over land. County courts at law take smaller civil claims and misdemeanors, and in many counties they handle probate too. Where a statutory probate court exists, it resolves estates and guardianships. The Court of Appeals reviews final judgments from all of these, along with a set of orders the legislature has made appealable before a case ends. Justice and municipal courts feed the county level first, so a fence line quarrel or a speeding ticket reaches the Court of Appeals only after that middle step.

Two higher courts sit above. For civil, family, and juvenile matters, the Texas Supreme Court reviews the Court of Appeals on a discretionary petition for review under Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 53. For criminal matters, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals holds the top spot and grants discretionary review under Rule 66. Texas splits its high court in two, a design shared with only one other state. Which court has the last word depends on whether the case is civil or criminal, and the Court of Appeals answers to a different master in each column.

Most appeals end where they begin at the intermediate level. Neither high court must take a case that arrives by petition; both build their own dockets. A losing litigant can ask Austin for another look, yet the grant rate is low, and the Court of Appeals opinion becomes the final judgment in the ordinary case. That fact drives strategy. Skilled counsel treat the briefs filed in Texarkana as the main event, because further review is the exception rather than the plan. The Court of Appeals writes with that finality in mind, spelling out its reasoning for the parties and for any trial judge who must apply it later.

The Court of Appeals corrects error. It does not retry the facts from a blank slate. Its judges read a paper record, apply settled standards, and ask whether the trial court got the law and the evidence right. No witness testifies before the panel. No new exhibit enters. The Court of Appeals can affirm, it can reverse and render the judgment the trial court should have signed, it can send the case back for a new trial, or it can trim a judgment in part. Reversal turns on harm to the complaining party, and a stray imperfection in the record will not do it.

The district's blend of rural and urban counties gives the court a wide diet. Mineral and timber disputes arrive from land rich counties along the border with Arkansas and Louisiana. Criminal appeals flow from every felony court in the region. Contract fights, employment claims, land title questions, and probate contests round out the docket. Because only three justices carry the whole load, the Court of Appeals develops a steady internal voice, and lawyers who practice there learn how the panel reads recurring questions.

Precedent from the Court of Appeals binds the trial courts within its district. A district judge in the region follows the Sixth Court of Appeals on a point of law until the high court or the panel itself changes course. Opinions from sister courts of appeals carry persuasive weight, though a Texarkana panel need not follow them. This regional force is why a published Court of Appeals opinion matters well beyond the parties who paid for it.

One structural feature deserves attention. The Texas Supreme Court may move cases between courts of appeals to balance workloads under Government Code section 73.001. A suit filed in another district can land at the Sixth Court of Appeals, and a suit filed here can travel elsewhere. When a transfer happens, the deciding court applies the precedent of the sending court on any point where the two districts disagree, under Rule 41.3. Counsel briefing a transferred appeal check which district's law controls before drafting a single issue.

Finality also shapes what leaves the building. A judgment from the Court of Appeals issues as a mandate after the time for rehearing and further review runs. Until the mandate issues, the trial court cannot act on the appellate ruling. Once it does, the case returns for whatever the opinion directs, whether that is entry of judgment, a new trial, or nothing at all. This handoff between the Court of Appeals and the trial court is where an appellate win turns into a concrete result.

Knowing where the Court of Appeals sits and what it can do is the starting point. What it may hear, and whether a party arrives by right or by permission, marks the boundary of every appeal filed there.

Jurisdiction sets the outer wall of the Court of Appeals. On the civil side, Texas Government Code section 22.220 gives the court appellate power over civil matters within its district when the amount in controversy or the judgment exceeds two hundred fifty dollars, apart from interest and costs. That floor is low, so the dollar limit rarely bars an appeal. The harder question is timing, because the Court of Appeals generally reviews one final judgment per case, the ruling that disposes of every party and every claim.

The final judgment rule keeps piecemeal appeals out. A party who dislikes an early ruling normally waits until the trial court signs a judgment that ends the case, then raises every complaint at once. The Court of Appeals reads the whole record together and decides the appeal in a single pass. Lengthy litigation can produce dozens of interim orders, yet most of them ride to the Court of Appeals on the back of the final judgment rather than on their own.

Some orders cannot wait, and the legislature says so. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 51.014 lists interlocutory orders a party may appeal at once, among them an order granting or denying a temporary injunction, a ruling on a governmental unit's plea to the jurisdiction, an order on a special appearance, and a decision certifying or refusing a class. These accelerated appeals move on a compressed schedule. The Court of Appeals hears them before the case is over because the harm from waiting would be hard to undo. A denied plea to the jurisdiction, left alone, would force a government defendant to try a case it should never face.

Appeal by right and appeal by permission differ in a basic way. Most appeals to the Court of Appeals come by right: the loser files a notice, and the court must decide the case. A permissive appeal is different. Under section 51.014(d) and Rule 28.3, a trial court may certify a controlling question of law on which reasonable judges could differ, and the Court of Appeals then chooses whether to accept the interlocutory question. The panel can decline. When it accepts, the parties get an early answer that can settle the rest of the suit.

Criminal work fills a large part of the docket. A defendant convicted in a district or county court may appeal to the Court of Appeals under Texas Code of Criminal Procedure article 44.02. The State's right to appeal is narrow; article 44.01 lets the prosecution appeal only certain orders, such as one dismissing an indictment or suppressing evidence. Death penalty cases skip the intermediate level entirely and go straight to the Court of Criminal Appeals, so the Court of Appeals never sees them. Everything else, from drug possession to murder that draws a life sentence, can land on the Texarkana panel.

Family and juvenile matters arrive regularly. A final decree of divorce, an order in a suit affecting the parent child relationship, and a termination of parental rights all open the door to the Court of Appeals. Parental termination appeals move on the accelerated track, and the court gives them priority because a child's placement hangs in the balance. Probate is its own animal. In an estate or guardianship, an order that finally disposes of a discrete phase can be appealed even though the whole proceeding continues, so the Court of Appeals may see the same estate more than once.

Administrative review reaches the court through the trial courts. When a state agency decides a contested case, a party often seeks judicial review in a district court, and the losing side then appeals that judgment to the Court of Appeals. Tax protests and workers' compensation claims travel this path. The Court of Appeals applies the standard of review the governing statute or the Administrative Procedure Act sets, which is frequently the substantial evidence test rather than a fresh look at the facts.

Original proceedings sit beside the appellate docket. Texas Government Code section 22.221 lets the court issue writs of mandamus and other writs needed to enforce its jurisdiction. A party who cannot appeal an order right away may petition for mandamus, asking the appellate bench to correct a clear abuse of discretion for which appeal offers no adequate remedy. Discovery rulings and orders compelling arbitration often reach the court this way. The bar for mandamus is high, and the judges grants relief sparingly.

Habeas corpus adds another channel. In some pretrial criminal settings, a defendant may seek habeas relief and, if denied, appeal to the panel. Bail disputes and double jeopardy claims sometimes travel here before trial. These matters move quickly because liberty is at stake, and this court treats them with the urgency the subject demands.

Read together, the statutes hand the court a docket that swings from a probate order to a capital assault verdict in the span of a week. Sorting which ruling is ripe, and by what route it may come, is the first task in any appeal. The next is meeting the deadlines and building the record that lets the appellate bench reach the merits at all.

An appeal begins with a notice, not a brief. Under Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 25.1, the appellant files a written notice of appeal with the trial court clerk, and that filing transfers the case to the Court of Appeals. Timing is strict. Rule 26.1 gives a civil appellant thirty days after the judgment is signed, stretched to ninety days when a party files a motion for new trial or certain other post judgment motions. Accelerated appeals shrink the window to twenty days under Rule 26.1(b). A late notice can cost the appeal, because the Court of Appeals cannot reach the merits of a case it never lawfully received.

Criminal deadlines track a parallel path. Rule 26.2 gives a defendant thirty days after sentence is imposed, or ninety days if a motion for new trial is filed. Miss the date, and the Court of Appeals loses power over the appeal absent a timely motion for extension under Rule 26.3. A defendant who wants to appeal a plea bargain faces extra limits from the trial court's certification of the right to appeal, so counsel confirm that right before the clock even starts.

The record is the raw material of every decision. It comes in two parts. The clerk's record holds the pleadings, motions, orders, and the judgment, assembled by the trial court clerk under Rule 34.5. The reporter's record holds the transcript of testimony and the exhibits, prepared by the Court of Appeals reporter under Rule 34.6. An appellant who wants the Court of Appeals to review the evidence must request the reporter's record and pay for it, or file a statement of inability to afford costs. Skip that step, and the judges presumes the missing testimony supports the judgment.

Superseding the judgment is a separate decision. A party who loses a money judgment can stop collection during the appeal by posting security under Rule 24, usually a supersedeas bond in an amount the rule caps. Without a bond, the winner can execute even while the panel considers the case. This choice has real money attached, and a client weighs the cost of the bond against the risk of collection before this court ever rules.

Briefing is where the appeal is won or lost. Rule 38 sets the contents of the appellant's brief: a statement of the case, the issues, the facts with record citations, the argument, and the prayer. Rule 9.4 caps the length, measured in words for computer prepared filings. The appellee answers, and the appellant may reply. Rule 38.6 fixes the deadlines, with the opening brief due within thirty days after the record is filed in most appeals. The court reads what the parties put in front of it, so an argument left out of the brief is usually waived.

Three justices decide the case. The appellate bench assigns a panel, and the panel reviews the briefs and the record. Oral argument is not automatic. A party requests it under Rule 39, and the judges grants argument when it would help, or decides the case on the briefs alone when the issues are settled. Argument in Texarkana is a working exchange with the panel. The judges interrupt, test the record, and probe the limits of each position.

Standards of review control the outcome more than any single fact. On a pure question of law, the panel reviews de novo and owes the trial court no deference. On legal sufficiency of the evidence in a civil case, the court follows City of Keller v. Wilson, 168 S.W.3d 802 (Tex. 2005), viewing the record in the light that supports the verdict. On factual sufficiency, unique to Texas civil practice, this court may weigh all the evidence and reverse when a finding runs against the great weight of the evidence, the standard drawn from Cain v. Bain, 709 S.W.2d 175 (Tex. 1986). Many trial rulings draw abuse of discretion review, a deferential lens under which the court asks whether the judge acted without reference to guiding rules.

Criminal sufficiency runs on a different track. The appellate bench measures the evidence against Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979), asking whether a rational juror could find each element beyond a reasonable doubt. Texas once allowed a separate factual sufficiency review in criminal cases, but the Court of Criminal Appeals ended that in Brooks v. State, 323 S.W.3d 893 (Tex. Crim. App. 2010). One Jackson standard remains. The judges now applies a single test to a conviction's evidentiary support, which narrows what a criminal appellant can win on the facts.

The panel's remedies have limits. Under Rule 43.2, the panel can affirm, modify and affirm, reverse and render the judgment the trial court should have entered, reverse and remand for a new trial, or vacate and dismiss. It cannot reverse on error that did not hurt the appellant; Rule 44.1 requires harm in civil cases, and Rule 44.2 sets the harm test for criminal ones. This court does not reweigh witness credibility as a jury would, and it does not take new evidence. An advisory opinion is off the table, because the court decides live disputes and nothing else.

After the opinion issues, the losing party has one more move at this level. A motion for rehearing under Rule 49 asks the same panel to reconsider, and a motion for en banc reconsideration asks all sitting justices of the court to take a second look. Both are long shots. When they fail, the road leads to the Texas Supreme Court or the Court of Criminal Appeals, and the mandate from the appellate bench eventually returns the case to the trial court for whatever the opinion commands.

The mandate closes the trial file, but the opinion behind it keeps working. What the Court of Appeals writes can bind the trial courts inside its district and guide the panels that follow. A ruling reaches past the two names in the caption. Lawyers across Texarkana and the counties this court covers read its opinions to predict how the next dispute will land, and trial judges follow them to stay off the reversal list. That is the reach of one appellate decision, and it is why a short opinion can matter far beyond the parties who paid for it.

Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 47 sorts the Court of Appeals's output into two forms. A published opinion carries full precedential weight and speaks to more than the litigants in front of the bench. A memorandum opinion resolves the appeal without breaking new legal ground, and the Court of Appeals reaches for it when settled law meets ordinary facts. Either way, the panel of three justices must give reasons. You can read every signed and memorandum opinion on the court's page through the state judiciary website. The label matters when you rely on the ruling later. Cite a memorandum opinion as controlling authority and expect a correction from the next panel that opens your brief.

Precedent from the Court of Appeals binds only within its own district, and Texas has fourteen of these intermediate courts spread across the state. A holding from Texarkana does not control a trial judge in Houston or El Paso, though those courts may find it persuasive. When two intermediate courts split on the same question, trial judges in each district follow their own, and the divide waits for a higher court to settle it. That fractured structure is one reason careful appellate lawyers track opinions from every district, not just the one where their case sits.

Rule 49 governs the motions left after the opinion issues. A motion for rehearing falls due within fifteen days after the judgment, and it asks the same three justices to correct what they got wrong. A motion for en banc reconsideration asks every sitting justice of the Court of Appeals to revisit the panel's work, and the court grants that only for questions of exceptional importance or to reconcile conflicts inside its own precedent. Neither motion is a second opening brief. Repeating rejected arguments burns the short window and wearies the bench. Point instead to a misread record, an authority the panel skipped, or an internal inconsistency the justices can repair. Oral argument on rehearing is rare, so the writing has to carry the motion alone.

Deadlines here are jurisdictional, not polite suggestions. Miss the fifteen days for rehearing or the forty-five for a petition for review, and no judge can revive the right out of sympathy. Rule 4 sets how you count the days, and Rule 26 allows a short extension only when you ask before the clock runs and show good cause. A party who wants every option open calendars the deadlines the moment the judges releases its opinion. The safest practice treats the opinion date, not the day you happened to read it, as day zero.

When rehearing fails, the road forks by the kind of case. Civil litigants petition the Texas Supreme Court for review under Rule 53, filed within forty-five days after the panel renders judgment or overrules a timely rehearing motion. The high court takes cases that resolve splits among the intermediate courts or answer open questions of Texas law. Review is discretionary, and most petitions never clear the first vote. A denial leaves the ruling from this court in place as the final word for those parties. Filing a petition does not stay the mandate on its own, so a party who wants to hold the trial court still must ask for that relief and post security where the rules require it.

Criminal defendants walk through a different door. A petition for discretionary review goes to the Court of Criminal Appeals under Rule 68, due within thirty days after the intermediate court's decision or its order on rehearing. That court sits at the top of the criminal system in Texas, parallel to the Supreme Court on the civil side. It picks its own cases and can refuse review without a word of explanation. A defendant who loses in the court and again at the Court of Criminal Appeals has run out of ordinary state remedies on direct appeal. Post-conviction habeas is a separate track with its own deadlines and its own gatekeeping.

One federal path stays open, and it is narrow. If the appeal turned on a question of federal law, the losing side may petition the United States Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari under 28 U.S.C. 1257, generally within ninety days under that Court's Rule 13. The petition does not pass back through the appellate bench, and it reaches only federal questions, never a fight about a Texas statute read on its own terms. The grant rate is tiny. A case decided purely on state grounds gives the Supreme Court nothing to review, because an adequate and independent state ground blocks federal reconsideration, as Michigan v. Long explains.

Rule 18 controls the mandate itself. The judges issues it once the deadlines for rehearing and further review pass, or once the higher courts finish. The mandate tells the trial court what to do. It may affirm the judgment below, render the judgment the trial court should have entered, or remand for a new trial or narrower proceedings. On remand the trial court cannot reopen what the appellate opinion settled, a limit lawyers call the law of the case. Costs follow the judgment under Rule 43, so the prevailing side often recovers filing fees and the price of the record.

Two wrinkles surprise newcomers. First, the Texas Supreme Court can transfer a case from one the panel to another to balance dockets across the state, so a dispute born near Texarkana can be decided by justices sitting elsewhere under Rule 41.3. Second, a conflict between this court here and another intermediate court is itself a reason the Supreme Court may grant review. Everything after the decision still runs on the record made below. The higher courts read the same clerk's record and reporter's record the court used, and they accept no new evidence. If a fact never made the record, no petition can put it there.

Recall where this court fits. The Court of Appeals in Texarkana is an intermediate court, one of fourteen across Texas, hearing civil and criminal appeals from the trial courts in its district before a case can climb any higher. That position shapes who you should hire. An appeal is not a second trial, and the lawyer who tried your case well is not automatically the right lawyer to argue it in the Court of Appeals. Trial skill and appellate skill overlap, yet they are separate crafts, and the difference shows up fast once the record is fixed and the only question is what the transcript will bear.

Texas keeps a single bar. Any attorney licensed and in good standing with the State Bar of Texas may appear before the Court of Appeals, so there is no separate appellate admission ticket to clear the way federal courts require. The State Bar Act in Texas Government Code chapter 81 sets the licensing baseline. What separates real appellate counsel is a demonstrated record of appellate work. The Texas Board of Legal Specialization certifies lawyers in Civil Appellate Law and Criminal Appellate Law, and that certification signals substantial briefing and argument plus a passed exam. It is not required to appear, and its absence does not disqualify a fine appellate lawyer, but it is a quick signal worth weighing.

Familiarity with this particular court has real value. The Court of Appeals in Texarkana runs its own docket, sets its own submission practices, and its three justices have written opinions that reveal how they read statutes and weigh preserved error. A lawyer who has appeared here knows the local rules layered on top of the Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure, and knows how this court handles requests for argument and extensions. That does not mean you must hire a Texarkana firm, since lawyers from across the state practice before the appellate bench. It means the lawyer should study this court's habits before filing a page.

Ask concrete questions. How many briefs has the lawyer filed in the judges, and in which districts. How many oral arguments, and before which courts. Whether the lawyer has handled the specific kind of appeal you face, since a civil sufficiency challenge and a criminal suppression appeal demand different instincts. Ask to read a merits brief the lawyer wrote. The writing tells you more than any pitch, because the panel decides most cases on the briefs, and oral argument, when granted, only sharpens what the paper already argued. A lawyer who cannot show you clean, cited, record-anchored writing is not ready for this court.

Appellate lawyers work with tools trial lawyers rarely touch daily. They pick issues, dropping weak points so the strong ones breathe. They frame every argument through the standard of review, because whether this court owes the trial court deference or reviews a question fresh often decides the appeal before the merits get discussed. They comb the record for preserved error and abandon complaints that were never raised below, since the Court of Appeals will not reverse on a ground the trial judge never had a chance to consider. A lawyer who talks about your appeal without mentioning the standard of review has not started thinking like an appellate lawyer.

Keeping your trial lawyer involved often makes sense. That lawyer knows the record and the witnesses and can hand the appellate specialist context a cold read of the transcript would miss. The two can split the labor, with trial counsel advising on facts and appellate counsel driving the briefs and the argument before the court. Ask both lawyers how they plan to divide the work and the fee, so no task falls through the gap between them.

Fees on appeal run differently from trial fees. Many appellate lawyers quote a flat fee for the brief and a separate fee for oral argument, because the work has defined phases. Others bill hourly. Either way, ask what the number covers and what it leaves out. The reporter's record and the clerk's record cost money to prepare, and those charges come from the court reporter and the district clerk, not the lawyer. A supersedeas bond to suspend the judgment during the appeal is a line item of its own. Get the full picture in writing before the engagement, and ask how the fee changes if the case goes to a petition for review or a petition for discretionary review after the appellate bench rules.

Understand the clock before you sign. The notice of appeal is due within thirty days after the judgment in most civil cases, or ninety days if a party files a qualifying post-judgment motion, under Rule 26.1. Criminal deadlines run under Rule 26.2. A lawyer you hire late still has to master a record someone else built, so bring counsel in early, ideally before the trial ends. The judges will not slow down because your lawyer joined at the last minute.

This directory helps at the vetting stage in a plain way. Where a firm has earned verification, its profile shows dated, editor-reviewed checks, and each check appears with a name, a short description, a status, and the date it was last confirmed. You can see whether a lawyer's Texas bar standing was verified and when, and whether the admissions we list were reviewed rather than assumed. A check dated last month tells you more than a claim with no date at all. Because the panel expects counsel in good standing, confirming that standing before you hire spares you a problem the court would otherwise force you to fix mid-appeal.

The value is in the dating. Bar standing can change, and a verification with a stale date is a verification you should question. Here, the last-checked date sits beside each item, so you are not guessing. Listing order on this directory reflects plan tiers, and we label that openly, so a higher placement reflects a plan tier and not a ranking of skill before this court. Read the verification block, read a brief, and judge the lawyer on the work.

Match the lawyer to the task and the court. An appeal to the court lives or dies on the record and the briefing, and the counsel you choose should be fluent in both. Confirm the license, weigh the appellate track record, settle the fee, and calendar the deadline. Do that, and you meet this intermediate court on its own terms, with the case framed the way three justices in Texarkana expect to receive it.