Buchanan v. State
| Decision Date | 18 October 2006 |
| Docket Number | No. PD-0006-06.,PD-0006-06. |
| Citation | 207 S.W.3d 772 |
| Parties | Cedric James BUCHANAN, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas. |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
Mark A. Rubal, Houston, for Appellant.
Peyton Z. Peebles, III, Assistant District Atty., Houston, Matthew Paul, State's Atty., Austin, for State.
The question presented in this case is whether a pretrial motion to suppress based upon constitutional principles, along with argument made to the trial court in support of that motion, was sufficient also to preserve error under Chapter 14 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure. We conclude that it was not obvious to the trial court or opposing counsel that the appellant was also invoking state law. We therefore reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and affirm the judgment of the trial court.
Police were investigating an aggravated robbery at a Sears department store. They had received information that a suspect, the appellant, was staying in a dilapidated garage apartment adjacent to a house destroyed by fire. When the police entered the premises the day after learning of the appellant's whereabouts, they did so without a warrant, and found him asleep on a mattress on the floor. Subsequent to the arrest, the officers searched a backpack next to the appellant, and seized a knife found within. The appellant was charged with aggravated robbery, with use of the knife constituting the aggravating factor.
Counsel for the defense filed a general pretrial motion to suppress the evidence seized after the arrest. In substance, the written motion asserted:
The Defendant would show that he was arrested without a valid warrant and/or probable cause and exigent circumstances in violation of his rights as guaranteed by U.S. CONST. amend. IV, & XIV, and TEX. CONST. Art. 1 sec 9. Defendant would further show that the alleged incriminating evidence was seized as a result of an illegal search that was not valid and not supported by adequate probable cause, and not pursuant to a warrant that authorized the search of the defendant or the place where the Defendant was located and was not supported by a valid consent to search. Any use of such illegally obtained evidence would violate the Defendant's right as set forth in Art. 38.23 V.A.C.C.P., in addition to the before-mentioned Constitutional provisions.
A pretrial hearing was held on the matter, at the conclusion of which the prosecutor argued that the appellant lacked standing to contest the police officers' entry into the building, that the officers had probable cause to arrest the appellant, and that their search of his backpack was a valid search incident to that legal arrest. The appellant's counsel confined his argument almost exclusively to the issue of standing, arguing that the appellant had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the garage apartment. The trial court denied the motion to suppress and the evidence was introduced at trial. A jury found the appellant guilty and sentenced him to 30 years' imprisonment in TDCJ-Correctional Institutions Division.
On appeal, the appellant asserted that the trial court erred to deny the motion to suppress because the initial entry and search of the residence without a warrant was in violation of both the United States Constitution and the Texas Constitution. Additionally, he argued that his arrest without a warrant violated the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Article I, Section 9 of the Texas Constitution, as well as Chapter 14 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure. The Sixth District Court of Appeals overruled all constitutional objections, but did hold that the appellant's arrest violated Chapter 14 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure and that any evidence obtained as a result of that arrest should have been suppressed in accordance with Article 38.23 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure.1
The court of appeals expressly addressed the question whether the appellant had preserved error under Chapter 14. In holding that he did, the court of appeals relied on the appellant's closing argument during the motion to suppress hearing. Counsel argued: "It's undisputed that the officers did not have a search warrant, did not have any sort of arrest warrant."2 Soon after, he also argued: "[T]hey have to have either consent, which they didn't have, or emergency exigent circumstances, which they didn't have . . . ."3 The court of appeals believed that this language was sufficient to invoke Chapter 14 because it alluded to a warrantless arrest and utilized terminology from Article 14.05 of that chapter.4 It therefore served, in the view of the court of appeals, to put the trial court and opposing counsel on notice that a Chapter 14 objection was being made. Accordingly, the court of appeals reviewed the merits of the Chapter 14 contention, found the arrest illegal under Article 14.03(a)(1) of that chapter,5 held that evidence of the knife should have been suppressed, that its erroneous admission into evidence was not harmless, and therefore reversed the decision of the trial court and remanded the case for a new trial. The State filed a petition for discretionary review contending that the opinion of the court of appeals is inconsistent with this Court's prior case law. We granted the State's petition for discretionary review in order to address this contention.6
It is well established that, in order to preserve an issue for appeal, a timely objection must be made that states the specific ground of objection, if the specific ground was not apparent from the context.7 A general or imprecise objection may be sufficient to preserve error for appeal, but only if the legal basis for the objection is obvious to the court and to opposing counsel.8 When the objection is not specific, and the legal basis is not obvious, it does not serve the purpose of the contemporaneous-objection rule for an appellate court to reach the merits of a forfeitable issue that is essentially raised for the first time on appeal.9
As the court of appeals acknowledged in this case, neither the Fourth Amendment nor Article I, Section 9 of the Texas Constitution requires a warrant to justify a public arrest based upon probable cause.10 The requirement of an arrest warrant is purely statutory in Texas, governed by Chapter 14 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.11 But even under the Fourth Amendment, police must have a warrant to arrest a suspect in his own home,12 or any other private premises in which he may have a reasonable expectation of privacy.13 The appellant clearly raised federal and state constitutional issues in his motion to suppress, as well as during the pretrial hearing thereon, and the court of appeals rejected them on the merits.14 The question is whether it should have been obvious to the trial court that he also raised the statutory requirement of a warrant to arrest.
The appellant first argues that the written motion to suppress expressly challenges the arrest as having been effectuated "without a valid warrant," which he contends is sufficient to put the trial court on notice as to a Chapter 14 objection. However, that phrase must be read in the context of the entire sentence, which specifically states that the arrest is objectionable because it was made While it is thus unmistakable that constitutional objections were being made to the arrest, nowhere does this sentence make it obvious that counsel for the appellant was somehow also objecting on Chapter 14 grounds. There is no mention of any provision of Chapter 14. The balance of the written motion attacks the validity of the search and is also predicated exclusively on various constitutional, not statutory, grounds.
Secondly, the appellant points to the language: "Any use of such illegally obtained evidence would violate the Defendant's right as set forth in Art. 38.23 of Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, in addition to the before mentioned Constitutional provisions." He maintains that this language made it clear that he was objecting to Chapter 14. We do not see how. The only illegality previously alleged in the motion is, as we have already noted, purely of a constitutional nature. There is no necessary correlation between Article 38.23, our statutory exclusionary rule,15 and Chapter 14, which deals with arrests without warrants. Article 38.23 applies in equal measure to exclude evidence admitted in violation of federal or state law, constitutional or statutory. A bare reference to it, without more, will not suffice to alert the trial court or opposing counsel which among federal constitutional, federal statutory, state constitutional, or state statutory law has allegedly been violated. In the context of this particular motion to suppress, it is apparent that Article 38.23 was invoked in vindication of the various federal and state constitutional violations earlier alleged, not a statutory right that was not even mentioned. The court of appeals erred to conclude otherwise.
Additionally, the appellant argues that at the pretrial hearing on the motion to suppress, counsel for the appellant made it obvious during argument to the trial court that he was invoking Chapter 14. It was this argument that formed the basis for the court of appeals' decision to reverse the trial court ruling on the motion to suppress. The court of appeals stated that during the closing argument:
[C]ounsel argued, "It's undisputed that the officers did not have a search warrant, did not have any sort of...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Pena v. State
.... ." TEX.R.APP. P. 33.1(a); see Griggs v. State, 213 S.W.3d 923, 927 (Tex.Crim. App.2007) (reversing this Court); Buchanan v. State, 207 S.W.3d 772, 775 (Tex.Crim. App.2006); Keeter v. State, 175 S.W.3d 756, 759-61 (Tex.Crim.App.) (reversing this Court), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 126 S.Ct......
-
Wilson v. State
...statutory grounds for exclusion of his confession when he relied solely on federal constitutional arguments); Buchanan v. State, 207 S.W.3d 772, 776 (Tex. Crim.App.2006) (defendant failed to preserve for review statutory grounds for exclusion of evidence obtained from warrantless arrest whe......
-
Davison v. State
...the specific ground for the objection, unless the ground is apparent from the context. See TEX. R. APP. P. 33.1 ; Buchanan v. State , 207 S.W.3d 772, 775 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006). "A general or imprecise objection may be sufficient to preserve error for appeal, but only if the legal basis for......
-
Valmana v. State
...an opportunity to correct any error before it results in the need for a retrial. See TEX. R. APP. P. 33.1(a)(1) ; Buchanan v. State , 207 S.W.3d 772, 775 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006). Appellant voiced no objection in the trial court regarding the matters about which he now complains on appeal, an......
-
Preservation of Error
...stating only constitutional objections will generally be insufficient to preserve error on state statutory grounds. Buchanan v. State, 207 S.W.3d 772 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006). A complaint raised at a motion to suppress hearing is waived if counsel fails to obtain an adverse ruling from the tr......
-
Motions related to searches of persons
...stating only constitutional objections will generally be insufficient to preserve error on state statutory grounds. Buchanan v. State , 207 S.W.3d 772 (Tex.Cr.App. 2006). PR A CTICE TIP: Although numerous grounds can be argued for suppression of searches, it is generally better to not alleg......
-
Motions related to searches of places
...stating only constitutional objections will generally be insufficient to preserve error on state statutory grounds. Buchanan v. State , 207 S.W.3d 772 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006). A defendant who moves for suppression under Art. 38.23 due to the violation of a statute has the burden of producing......
-
Preservation of Error
...stating only constitutional objections will generally be insufficient to preserve error on state statutory grounds. Buchanan v. State, 207 S.W.3d 772 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006). A complaint raised at a motion to suppress hearing is waived if counsel fails to obtain an adverse ruling from the tr......