Which of the following statements is false?

• A. Defendants in non-record municipal courts can plead guilty and appeal a case.
• B. When counting the appeal time, the court counts the day the judgment is entered.
• C. If a defendant fails to present the appeal bond to the court within the required time, the court can refuse to send it to the county court.
• D. If a county court refuses to take jurisdiction of a municipal court appeal, the defendant must pay the municipal court's fine.

Answer: (C)

Understanding how municipal court appeals work is key here: to move an appeal from a municipal court to the county court, the appeal must be perfected by timely filing both a notice of appeal and the appeal bond, and then the record is transmitted to the county court for the de novo review or trial as allowed. The timing and perfection rules determine whether the county court even has jurisdiction to hear the appeal.

The statement about failing to file the appeal bond on time is false because the appeal isn’t perfected by a late bond, and the case can’t simply be sent to the county court on the strength of a late filing. If the bond isn’t timely filed, there’s no perfected appeal to transmit, and transmission to the county court does not occur unless and until the bond (or any properly allowed cure) brings the appeal into perfection. In practice, the remedy is to dismiss the appeal or to cure the deficiency within the prescribed time, not to permit automatic transmission by the court simply because the bond was late.

Context for the other options helps anchor the idea:

• In non-record municipal courts, a defendant can plead guilty and still appeal to county court for a de novo review, preserving the right to challenge the judgment in a new forum.

• When calculating appeal deadlines, the relevant rules specify how the date counting works, including when the judgment date is considered for start of the clock.

• If the county court declines to take jurisdiction of the municipal court appeal, the judgment in the municipal court stands, and the defendant would typically be obligated to pay the municipal fine.