(a) Additional Time to File Notice of Appeal. If neither an adversely affected defendant nor the defendant’s attorney received notice or acquired actual knowledge that the trial judge signed an order appealable under Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 64 within twenty days after the signing, then the time periods under these rules that ordinarily run from the signing of an appealable order will begin to run on the earliest date when the defendant or the defendant’s attorney received notice or acquired actual knowledge of the signing. But in no event shall such periods begin more than 120 days after the day the trial judge signed the appealable order.
(b) Motion to Gain Additional Time.
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(1) A defendant’s motion for additional time must:
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- (A) Be in writing and sworn;
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- (B) State the defendant’s desire to appeal from the appealable order;
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- (C) State the earliest date when the defendant or the defendant’s attorney received notice or acquired actual knowledge that the trial judge signed the appealable order; and
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- (D) Be filed within 120 days of the signing of the appealable order.
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(2) To establish the application of paragraph (a) of this rule, the defendant adversely affected must prove in the trial court:
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- (A) The earliest date on which the defendant or the defendant’s attorney received notice or acquired actual knowledge that the trial judge signed the appealable order; and
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- (B) That this date was more than twenty days after the signing of the appealable order.
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(3) If the defendant’s motion for additional time meets the requirements set out in paragraphs (b)(1) and (b)(2), the motion may serve as the defendant’s notice of appeal.
(c) The Court’s Order. After hearing the motion for additional time, the trial judge must sign a written order that determines the earliest date when the defendant or the defendant’s attorney received notice or acquired actual knowledge that the trial judge signed the appealable order and whether this date was more than twenty days after the judge signed the appealable order.
(d) The Clerk’s Duties. The trial court clerk must immediately (as they are filed or entered in the record) forward to all parties in the case copies of the defendant’s motion for additional time, the trial judge’s written order under subsection (c), the order the defendant seeks to appeal, any State’s response, and any exhibits and related documents.