Full Opinion

In The Court of Appeals Seventh District of Texas at Amarillo No. 07-25-00285-CR DAVID ANDREW MARTINEZ, APPELLANT V. THE STATE OF TEXAS, APPELLEE On Appeal from the 100th District Court Hall County, Texas Trial Court No. 4172, Honorable Dale A. Rabe, Jr., Presiding August 27, 2026 MEMORANDUM OPINION Before DOSS and YARBROUGH and PRATT, JJ. On the morning of his adjudication hearing, Appellant, David Andrew Martinez, asked the trial court to postpone the proceeding so he could hire a lawyer of his own choosing. He made the request orally, and he made it unsworn. The trial court denied the request, adjudicated Appellant guilty of second-degree felony theft, and sentenced him to eighteen years of confinement.1 Appellant now appeals from that judgment, 1 TEX. PENAL CODE § 31.03(a), (e)(6). arguing that the denial deprived him of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel and was an abuse of discretion. Because the Code of Criminal Procedure permits a continuance only on a written and sworn motion, Appellant preserved nothing for our review. We affirm. BACKGROUND A grand jury indicted Appellant for theft of United States currency in an amount of at least $30,000 but less than $150,000. He pleaded guilty, and the trial court deferred a finding of guilt and placed him on community supervision subject to numerous conditions. The State later moved to adjudicate, alleging that Appellant had violated several conditions. At the hearing on the State’s motion, Appellant announced through his court- appointed counsel that he was “not ready.” Counsel explained that Appellant wished to retain his own attorney because he was dissatisfied with counsel’s performance. Appellant then testified and confirmed that explanation. He stated that he had received notice of the State’s motion roughly four months before the hearing but did not hear from his appointed attorney until the day before it. The trial court denied the continuance, observing that Appellant had been served with the motion several months earlier and that counsel had been appointed about one month earlier. Appellant pleaded true to the alleged violations. The trial court adjudicated him guilty and assessed an eighteen-year sentence. This appeal followed. 2 PRESERVATION OF ERROR A defendant who desires a continuance must ask for it the way the Legislature has prescribed. Article 29.03 of the Code of Criminal Procedure allows a continuance in a criminal action only on a written motion showing sufficient cause; it requires that the motion be sworn to by a person having personal knowledge of the facts relied on. TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. arts. 29.03, 29.08. The Court of Criminal Appeals addressed this requirement in Blackshear v. State, 385 S.W.3d 589, 591 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012). It held that a party who does not comply with the written and sworn requirements for requesting a continuance forfeits the right to complain on appeal about the trial court’s ruling. The court declined to carve out an exception for constitutional complaints, refusing to recognize a due process exception to those same requirements. Id. The form of the motion, in other words, controls whether an appellate court may reach the substance of the request. See also Anderson v. State, 301 S.W.3d 276, 279 (Tex. Crim. App. 2009). Here Appellant’s request was made orally, and no one swore to the facts supporting it. Neither statutory requirement was met. His complaint is therefore forfeited, and nothing is preserved for review. See id. We overrule Appellant’s sole issue. CONCLUSION We affirm the trial court’s judgment. Lawrence M. Doss Justice Do not publish. 3