State of Texas v. Zermeno, Jose Guadalupe

OPINION

In these two consolidated cases, the trial judge granted the defendants’ motions to suppress evidence. The State filed a notice of appeal in each case, but the court of appeals dismissed the appeals, concluding that it did not have jurisdiction because the elected district attorney failed to timely file the statutorily required certification that the appeal was not taken for delay and that the evidence suppressed was of “substantial importance” to the case. 1 The State filed for discretionary review, asking whether the court of appeals’s interpretation of the certification requirement…