Arcila v. State

• Decision Date: 24 June 1992
• Docket Number: No. 382-90,382-90
• Citation: 834 S.W.2d 357
• Parties: Oscar Emilio ARCILA, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 357

834 S.W.2d 357

Oscar Emilio ARCILA, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.

No. 382-90.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas,

En Banc.

June 24, 1992.

John H. Hagler (on appeal only), Dallas, for appellant.

John Vance, Dist. Atty., Yolanda M. Joosten and Shannon Ross, Asst. Dist. Attys., Dallas, Robert Huttash, State's Atty., Austin, for the State.

Before the court en banc.

OPINION ON APPELLANT'S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW

BENAVIDES, Judge.

Appellant was convicted of possessing cocaine and sentenced to 35 years of confinement in the penitentiary and a fine of $1,000. On direct appeal, he urged reversal of the conviction for failure of the trial court to suppress the physical evidence seized from his residence, claiming that his consent to search, given only after he had been illegally arrested, was not voluntary. The Fifth Court of Appeals agreed that appellant's arrest was illegal under Texas law, but concluded that seizure of the cocaine was not unlawful because appellant voluntarily consented to the search. Arcila v. State, 788 S.W.2d 587 (Tex.App.--Dallas 1990). We granted discretionary review to determine whether the lower court's analysis should have included a separate inquiry concerning attenuation of any taint from the illegal arrest, and to decide whether, in appellant's words, "the Court of Appeals erred in holding that the evidence established that the Appellant freely and voluntarily consented to the search of his residence." Appellant's PDR, p. 8. We address these issues separately.

I.

Questions of voluntariness and attenuation of taint are closely related. Considerations officially applicable to one are almost invariably relevant to the other as well. See Miller v. State, 736 S.W.2d 643, 649-651 (Tex.Cr.App.1987). Thus, although appellant cast his complaint on appeal in terms of voluntariness, the factual context in which it was embedded seemed also to call for some assessment of the degree to which his consent might have been induced by illegal police activity. See Reyes v. State, 741 S.W.2d 414, 430-431 (Tex.Cr.App.1987). The Dallas Court of Appeals did, in fact, analyze the problem that way. But because this Court has for some time taken the position that an attenuation analysis is logically distinct from one involving only questions of voluntariness, it might be suggested that the lower court's evaluation of appellant's claim in this cause was incomplete.

When complaint is made on appeal that evidence should have been suppressed because the product of unattenuated official illegality, the appellate court may not conclude its analysis with a discussion of voluntary consent alone, but must specifically evaluate the impact of constitutionally prescribed factors upon the degree to which exploitation of the illegality was attenuated by such consent or by other intervening events and circumstances. Brick v. State, 738 S.W.2d 676 (Tex.Cr.App.1987). See also Brown v. Illinois, 422 U.S. 590, 95 S.Ct. 2254, 45 L.Ed.2d 416 (1975). On the other hand, consideration of these factors, although relevant, may not be constitutionally required under a pure voluntariness analysis. Consequently, one kind of inquiry is not necessarily dispositive of questions appropriate to the other, in spite of considerable overlap.

We adhere to our established approach in the instant cause, but do not regard the appellate court's failure to discuss the attenuation problem separately as a shortcoming in the present context. Appellant makes no complaint before this Court, nor did he previously before the trial and appellate courts, that his consent to search, even if voluntary, was nonetheless rendered ineffective by unattenuated police illegality. Rather, it has been his only contention from the beginning that consent was not given voluntarily. ¹ To the extent that illegal police conduct affected this question, the court of appeals appears to have given it due consideration. It was not necessary that the appellate court separately decide whether the taint of illegality was attenuated, as appellant did not raise the issue on appeal.

II.

Events leading to the seizure of cocaine from appellant's residence are well summarized in the Court of Appeals opinion. Suffice it to say here that appellant was one of several persons suspected by law enforcement officers of planning a contract killing in Dallas. In an effort to apprehend those responsible and to prevent commission of the crime, a combined law enforcement team from Houston and Dallas monitored progress of the conspiracy with cooperation of the proposed hit man, acting as a police informant. Early in the morning, while following the informant and his employers as they drove toward appellant's house, the police grew concerned for the informant's safety and stopped the car in which he was riding before its arrival. Much of the team, including about a dozen policemen, six patrol vehicles, and a helicopter, then proceeded to the vicinity of appellant's house. While the others kept their distance, three or four officers approached the door, awakened appellant, identified themselves, and were invited inside. Then, without benefit of a warrant or any adequate excuse for failure to obtain one, they placed appellant under arrest for conspiracy to commit capital murder. Before transporting him to jail, however, the police told appellant that they also suspected him of possessing illegal drugs in the house, based on information earlier communicated by their informant. Although warned of his right to remain silent and to withhold consent, appellant readily admitted to having cocaine, signed a form authorizing the officers to search for it, and then directed them to its precise location in the house. By all accounts, he was not treated harshly, nor was he subjected to pressures beyond those necessarily attending a full custodial arrest. Although more police officers later entered the premises, appellant was evidently unaware of others surrounding his house from the outside.

While we would not be at all surprised to find that appellant's consent was actually involuntary in this case, we are unable to aver as a matter of law that consent is necessarily involuntary under such circumstances. Hence, the question for this Court on discretionary review is not whether the Court of Appeals was correct, as an empirical matter, but whether it fairly evaluated the voluntariness of appellant's consent, using the correct legal standard, considering all relevant evidence in the record, and affording proper deference to the trial judge as primary factfinder. We are persuaded that it did.

This is not to say that we approve the police procedures employed in this case. Indeed, we agree with the Court of Appeals that appellant's arrest was undoubtedly a violation of Texas law. Moreover, it is possible that a majority of this Court, acting as appellate judges, would also have held appellant's consent to search involuntary. But we do not reach that issue here. Like this Court, the courts of appeals are duty-bound to uphold the constitution and laws of this State and of the United States. So long as it appears that they have discharged that duty conscientiously by impartial application of pertinent legal doctrine and fair consideration of the evidence, it is our duty in turn to respect their judgments. Our principal role as a court of last resort is the caretaker of Texas law, not the arbiter of individual applications. When different versions of the law, including unsettled applications of the law to significantly novel fact situations, compete for control of an issue, it is finally the job of this Court to identify and elaborate which is to control thereafter. But, except under compelling circumstances, ultimate responsibility for the resolution of factual disputes lies elsewhere. See Meraz v. State, 785 S.W.2d 146, 152-154 (Tex.Cr.App.1990) (Courts of appeals are the final arbiters of fact questions); Meeks v. State, 692 S.W.2d 504, 510 (Tex.Cr.App.1985) (Voluntariness of consent is a fact question). ²

In the instant cause, the lower court's analysis was more than adequate. Factors militating both in favor of and against a finding of voluntariness were set out side-by-side in its opinion. A thorough review of federal and state decisional law was included. In both respects, it appears that the court's assessment of the case was exemplary. Certainly neither party claims that relevant evidence or applicable law was ignored, manufactured, or misunderstood.

Thus, the only basis for complaint here is that the Dallas Court of Appeals somehow managed to get it wrong. Even if our own decision might have been different on the question presented, we cannot accept the proposition that an appellate court's judgment ought to be subject to reversal on such basis, at least when the evidence is sufficient to support it. Doing so only tends to undermine the respective roles of this and the intermediate courts without significant contribution to the criminal jurisprudence of the State. This Court should reserve its discretionary review prerogative, for the most part, to dispel any confusion generated in the past by our own case law, to reconcile settled differences between the various courts of appeals, and to promote the fair administration of justice by trial and appellate courts throughout Texas. See Tex.R.App.P. 200(b), (c); DeGrate v. State, 712 S.W.2d 755 (Tex.Cr.App.1986).

In the instant cause, we have examined the Dallas Court's opinion with some care. It fairly addresses the issues raised on appeal, evaluates those issues according to settled rules of law, accounts for all evidence relevant to the questions presented, and reaches a conclusion adequately supported by the law and the evidence. Appellant himself does not claim otherwise, but apparently hopes that an independent reevaluation of the question by this Court will favor his position. Here, we decline, to substitute our...