In the
Court of Appeals
Sixth Appellate District of Texas at Texarkana
No. 06-26-00070-CR
EX PARTE JESSICA CAROLINA QUINTANA
On Appeal from the 253rd District Court
Liberty County, Texas
Trial Court No. 26DC-WR-00097
Before Stevens, C.J., van Cleef and Rambin, JJ.
Memorandum Opinion by Justice van Cleef
MEMORANDUM OPINION
This is an appeal from the denial of a pretrial writ of habeas corpus.1 Jessica Carolina
Quintana was indicted for two counts of injury to a child causing serious bodily injury and
aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury. Quintana appeals the trial court’s denial of her
request for a personal recognizance or reduced bond after the State obtained an indictment on the
eighty-ninth day of her pre-trial incarceration.
We affirm the trial court.
I. Background
Quintana was arrested on October 24, 2025, and on January 22, 2026, she filed an
application for writ of habeas corpus. The trial court conducted a hearing on February 11, 2026,
and thereafter denied her requested habeas relief.
II. Standard of Review
We review a trial court’s decision to deny habeas corpus for an abuse of discretion. See
Ex Parte Gill, 413 S.W.3d 425, 428 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013). Under this standard, a trial court
abuses its discretion when it acts arbitrarily or unreasonably, without reference to guiding rules
and principles, or “when no reasonable view of the record could support its ruling.” State v.
Lerma, 639 S.W.3d 63, 68 (Tex. Crim. App. 2021). In making this determination, we “view the
evidence in the light most favorable to the trial court’s ruling.” Id. (quoting Briggs v. State, 560
S.W.3d 176, 185 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018)).
Article 17.151 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure states,
1
Originally appealed to the Ninth Court of Appeals, this case was transferred to this Court by the Texas Supreme Court pursuant to its docket equalization efforts. See TEX. GOV’T CODE ANN. § 73.001 (Supp.).
2
Sec. 1. A defendant who is detained in jail pending trial of an accusation against
[her] must be released either on personal bond or by reducing the amount of bail
required, if the state is not ready for trial of the criminal action for which [s]he is
being detained within:
(1) 90 days from the commencement of h[er] detention if [s]he is accused of a
felony[.]
TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 17.151, § 1(1) (Supp.).
“Article 17.151 is mandatory; if the State is not ready for trial within [ninety] days of the
beginning of the defendant’s detention, the defendant accused of a felony must be released on
personal bond or by reducing the required bail amount.” Ex parte Lanclos, 624 S.W.3d 923, 927
(Tex. Crim. App. 2021). And if the trial “court chooses to reduce the amount of bail required, it
must reduce it to an amount that the record reflects the accused can make.” Id.
The State has the initial burden “to make a prima facie showing that it was ready” for
trial within ninety days after the start of a defendant’s detention. Jones v. State, 803 S.W.2d 712,
717 (Tex. Crim. App. 1991).
III. Analysis
The trial court expressly found that “the State was ready, sufficient to meet the statute.”
Quintana claims that finding, coupled with a denial of her request to reduce the dollar amount of
the bond or grant her personal recognizance release, was an abuse of discretion. In particular,
she claims that the State could not have been ready for trial within the ninety days provided in
Article 17.151 because, when the indictment was issued, the State had yet to make disclosures
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required by the Michael Morton Act2 embodied in Article 39.14 of the Texas Code of Criminal
Procedure. See TEX. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 39.14 (Supp.).
The State may establish prima facie readiness “either by announcing within the allotted
time that it is ready, or by announcing retrospectively that it had been ready within the allotted
time.” Jones, 803 S.W.2d at 717 (citing Barfield v. State, 586 S.W.2d 538, 542 (Tex. Crim. App.
[Panel Op.] 1979)). “It is not enough that the State appear in open court after the running of the
applicable period and declare itself at that time ready for trial.” Id.
At the writ hearing, and in response to Quintana’s motion, the State first responded as
follows:
The State is ready, Your Honor. We’ve indicted the case within [ninety] days,
which the code requires. And we’ve done -- witnesses are available. They’re all
local. Evidence has been disclosed. There’s nothing pending on the State’s side.
So defense argument is moot. I mean, we’re ready, and it’s been indicted. It’s
pretty clear, within the [ninety]-day window, and we are within that [ninety]-day
window.
Later in the hearing, the State also announced as follows:
Under 17.151, the State was ready and is still ready to proceed. We have met our
prima facie burden of announcing that through the indictment and then also
through what’s been announced for purposes of [Article] 17.151.
In the context of the writ hearing, and considering both of the State’s announcements before the
trial court in a light most favorable to the trial court’s ruling, it was not an abuse of discretion for
the trial court to determine that the State’s announcement that it “was ready” referred to the time
allotted by Article 17.151, and that the State established its readiness as a prima facie matter.
The burden then shifted to Quintana to rebut the State’s announcement. See id. at 718.
2
See Michael Morton Act, 83d Leg., R.S., ch. 49, 2013 Tex. Gen. Laws 106.
4
Evidence that rebuts a prima facie showing of readiness “may consist of, among
other things, a demonstration that the state did not have a key witness or piece of
evidence available by the last day of the applicable time limit so that the state was
not ready for trial within that time limit.”
Id. (quoting Barefield, 586 S.W.2d at 542). Here, all of the evidence offered by Quintana at the
writ hearing consisted of her ability to pay the then-current amount of bail. Further, “[t]he
State’s duty to comply with its discovery obligations under article 39.14 is not a component of
the State’s readiness for trial as it relates to a defendant’s rights to bail under Article 17.151 of
the Code of Criminal Procedure.” In re Tovar, No. 09-23-00358-CR, 2024 WL 697698, at *2
(Tex. App.—Beaumont Feb. 20, 2024, orig. proceeding) (per curiam) (mem. op., not designated
for publication) (citing Ex parte Highsmith, 652 S.W.3d 850, 858 (Tex. App.—Austin 2022, pet.
ref’d)). Quintana did not rebut the State’s prima facie readiness announcement.
Since Quintana’s point of error alleges that the trial court was required to either grant a
personal recognizance bond or a reduced bond, and since we overrule that point of error, we will
not consider the amount of her bond.
IV. Conclusion
Viewing the evidence in a light most favorable to the trial court’s decision, we conclude
that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it denied Quintana’s application for a writ of
habeas corpus.
Quintana’s sole point of error is overruled.
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We affirm the trial court’s denial of Quintana’s pretrial writ for habeas corpus.
Charles van Cleef
Justice
Date Submitted: June 15, 2026
Date Decided: June 30, 2026
Do Not Publish
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