Aguilar v. State
| Decision Date | 07 October 2020 |
| Docket Number | NO. 03-19-00149-CR,03-19-00149-CR |
| Parties | Jose Salvador Aguilar, Appellant v. The State of Texas, Appellee |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
FROM COUNTY COURT AT LAW NO. 2 OF COMAL COUNTY
NO. 2016CR1020, THE HONORABLE CHARLES A. STEPHENS II, JUDGE PRESIDING
Jose Salvador Aguilar was convicted of driving while intoxicated and sentenced to 180 days in county jail, but the trial court placed him on community supervision for twelve months. See Tex. Penal Code §§ 12.22, 49.04. On appeal, Aguilar contends that the trial court erred by denying his motion to suppress, overruling his objection to allegedly improper arguments by the State during the trial, and failing to include in the jury charge his requested instruction. We will affirm the trial court's judgment of conviction.
BACKGROUND
During the Memorial Day holiday weekend in 2016, Officer Anthony Aragones initiated a traffic stop after observing Aguilar speeding and later arrested Aguilar for driving while intoxicated ("DWI"). A sample of Aguilar's blood was taken approximately two hours after the start of the traffic stop, and the results showed that Aguilar had a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.102.
Aguilar filed a motion to suppress the evidence obtained during the traffic stop. During a hearing on the motion, Officer Aragones testified about the traffic stop and the events leading up to Aguilar's arrest. After considering the evidence presented during the hearing and the parties' arguments, the trial court denied the motion to suppress. During the trial, the parties relitigated the suppression issue after Officer Aragones finished testifying, and the trial court again denied the motion to suppress.
At trial, various witnesses testified regarding the traffic stop, Aguilar's performance during his field-sobriety testing, and the testing performed on the sample of Aguilar's blood. In its closing argument, the State presented argument regarding whether Aguilar may have digested the contents of his dinner before the traffic stop, and Aguilar objected to the State's argument. The trial court overruled Aguilar's objection. During a charge conference, Aguilar asked the trial court to include an instruction under article 38.23 of the Code of Criminal Procedure regarding whether Officer Aragones had reasonable suspicion to detain Aguilar beyond the traffic stop. The trial court denied that request.
After considering the evidence presented at trial, the jury found Aguilar guilty of the charged offense. Aguilar appeals his conviction.
DISCUSSION
In his three issues on appeal, Aguilar argues that the trial court erred by denying his motion to suppress, overruling his objection to the State's improper jury argument madeduring its closing arguments, and failing to include in the jury charge an instruction under article 38.23 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
Ruling on Motion to Suppress
Evidence Presented at the Suppression Hearing and at Trial
During the hearing on the motion to suppress and at trial, Officer Aragones testified regarding the traffic stop and the events leading up to Aguilar's arrest. A recording from Officer Aragones's dashboard camera was admitted into evidence and played for the trial court. Although the recording shows the traffic stop and subsequent investigation, there is no audio on much of the recording. The following summary comes from the evidence presented during the suppression hearing and from Officer Aragones's testimony at trial.
Officer Aragones testified that he had received specialized training regarding intoxication-related offenses and that he was assigned to "a DWI task force" at the river in Comal County over the Memorial Day holiday weekend. In addition, Officer Aragones related that while patrolling a road near the river around 8:45 p.m., he observed a truck being driven by an individual later identified as Aguilar that appeared to be speeding and confirmed his suspicion by using his radar, which showed that the vehicle was travelling forty-six miles per hour in a thirty-five-mile-per-hour zone. After confirming that Aguilar was speeding, Officer Aragones initiated a traffic stop of the truck. When he approached the truck, Officer Aragones noticed the smell of alcohol coming from inside the truck. Officer Aragones described Aguilar as wearing a swimsuit but not a shirt. While at the truck, Officer Aragones explained to Aguilar why he had initiated the stop and asked to see Aguilar's driver's license and proof of insurance.
When testifying, Officer Aragones explained that he asked Aguilar to get out of the truck to talk because there were several passengers in the car and because he wanted todetermine from whom the smell of alcohol was emitting. Next, Officer Aragones testified that he could smell alcohol on Aguilar's breath when Aguilar responded to his questions after getting out of the truck. Officer Aragones asked Aguilar where he was driving from, and Aguilar stated that he had been at the river with his family and admitted that he had been drinking, that he drank "three or four beers" while at the river, that he started drinking around 6:00 p.m., and that he drank his last beer ten to fifteen minutes before the traffic stop. In addition, Officer Aragones explained that he then asked Aguilar to submit to field-sobriety testing and later asked Aguilar to provide a breath sample after Aguilar had difficulty performing the horizontal-gaze-nystagmus test.
In his testimony, Officer Aragones admitted that the only traffic violation that he observed before initiating the stop was Aguilar's speeding and that he did not see Aguilar weaving or swerving while driving. While describing Aguilar's behavior, Officer Aragones explained that Aguilar pulled his truck over quickly, did not have difficulty presenting his driver's license and proof of insurance, did not appear to have difficulty balancing, was not swaying or stumbling, did not slur his words, did not have bloodshot eyes, and provided timely responses to the questions that were asked of him. When asked if the time that he directed Aguilar to step out of the car and walk to the back was the "moment . . . when [he was] going to decide it's a DWI investigation," Officer Aragones replied, "Yes." After being asked if he was going to perform an investigation regarding whether Aguilar was driving while intoxicated once he asked Aguilar to get out of the car, Officer Aragones replied, Similarly, Officer Aragones replied, "Yes," when asked if he decided "to kind of transition from a traffic stop to a DWI investigation" after Aguilar got out of the truck. Additionally, Officer Aragones admitted thatspeeding is not one of the indicators of intoxication used by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, that he did not consider Aguilar's speeding when deciding whether there was reasonable suspicion to detain Aguilar, and that the only clue that he observed indicating that Aguilar might be intoxicated before he began his investigation was the smell of alcohol.
The recording from Officer Aragones's dashboard camera shows him initiating the traffic stop and approaching Aguilar's truck. Aguilar got out of the truck less than a minute after Officer Aragones approached the truck and talked with Officer Aragones at the back of the truck for several minutes before Officer Aragones initiated the horizontal-gaze-nystagmus test. The recording shows other passengers inside the truck.
After considering the evidence presented and the parties' arguments during the hearing and at trial, the trial court denied Aguilar's suppression motion and issued the following findings of fact and conclusions of law after the conclusion of the trial:
Standard of Review and Governing Law
Appellate courts review a trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress for an abuse of discretion. Arguellez v. State, 409 S.W.3d 657, 662 (Tex. Crim. App. 2013). Under that standard, the record is "viewed in the light most favorable to the trial court's determination, and the judgment will be reversed only if it is arbitrary, unreasonable, or 'outside the zone of reasonable disagreement.'" State v. Story, 445 S.W.3d 729, 732 (Tex. Crim. App. 2014) (quoting State v. Dixon, 206 S.W.3d 587, 590 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006)). In general, appellate courts apply "a bifurcated standard, giving almost total deference to the historical facts found by the trial court and analyzing de novo the trial court's application of the law." See ...
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