Hill v. State

• Decision Date: 19 August 2021
• Docket Number: 14-19-00735-CR
• Parties: RONALD THOMAS HILL, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

RONALD THOMAS HILL, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee

No. 14-19-00735-CR

Court of Appeals of Texas, Fourteenth District

August 19, 2021

Do Not Publish - Tex. R. App. P. 47.2(b).

On Appeal from the 212th District Court Galveston County, Texas Trial Court Cause No. 17-CR-2029

Panel consists of Justices Spain, Hassan, and Poissant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

MARGARET “MEG” POISSANT, JUSTICE

Appellant Ronald Thomas Hill appeals his conviction for driving while intoxicated (DWI), third offense or more, a third-degree felony. See Tex. Penal Code Ann. §§ 49.04, 49.09(b). In three issues we address as two, appellant argues (1) the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress and (2) there was insufficient evidence of his prior DWI convictions. We affirm.

I. Background^[1]

On September 21, 2016, Officer Luis Velasquez of the Dickinson Police Department witnessed appellant strike a concrete pillar with his truck at a gas station in Dickinson, Texas. Appellant parked the truck in a parking space in front of the gas station. Officer Velasquez approached appellant and noticed a smell of alcohol on appellant's breath. Believing appellant exhibited signs of intoxication, Officer Velasquez asked appellant if he would do standard field sobriety tests, and appellant replied yes. Officer Velasquez administered a horizontal gaze nystagmus (HGN) test. During the HGN test, Velasquez observed all six clues of intoxication, handcuffed appellant, and transported him to the police station. At the police station, appellant refused to submit to further testing. Based on Officer Velasquez's affidavit, a magistrate issued a search warrant for appellant's blood, and a sample was obtained. The State performed an analysis of appellant's blood over 100 days later, which showed appellant's blood alcohol level to be 0.260 grams of ethanol per 100 milliliters of blood.

In July 2017, appellant was indicted for the underlying offense. The indictment alleged that appellant was previously convicted of DWI offenses on August 5, 1994, and June 22, 1998, thereby enhancing appellant's underlying DWI offense to a third-degree felony. See id. § 49.09(b); Gibson v. State, 995 S.W.2d 693, 696 (Tex. Crim. App. 1999) ("The prior intoxication-related offenses, whether they are felonies or misdemeanors, serve the purpose of establishing whether the instant offense qualifies as felony driving while intoxicated."). The indictment further alleged that appellant was previously convicted of two additional felony offenses for DWI on November 27, 2007, and July 12, 2012, thereby elevating his punishment for the underlying DWI offense to that of a habitual-felony offender. Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 12.42(d) (elevating the punishment range for habitual-felony offenders to "any term of not more than 99 years or less than 25 years"); see also Gibson, 995 S.W.2d at 696 ("We conclude that prior intoxication-related convictions serve the purpose of enhancing the offense in [§] 49.09(b) whereas the prior convictions used in [§] 12.42(d) serve the purpose of enhancing punishment.").

On February 14, 2019, appellant filed a "Second Motion to Suppress,"^[2]seeking to suppress "the blood analysis search of [appellant's] blood" because the blood analysis was made without a warrant. Specifically, appellant argued that: (1) the extraction of his blood and the analysis of his blood constituted two separate searches, and therefore, the State was required to obtain a second warrant for the analysis of his blood, which the State failed to do; and (2) the analysis of his blood was not executed within the three-day timeframe provided in the warrant.

The search warrant executed by Officer Velasquez provided:

Now, therefore, you are commanded to take custody of the suspect and transport the suspect to a physician, registered nurse, qualified technician, phlebotomist or medical laboratory technician skilled in the taking of blood from the human body, in Galveston County, Texas, where the said physician, registered nurse, qualified technician or medical laboratory technician shall, in the presence of a law enforcement officer, take samples of the blood from the body of [appellant].

Law enforcement officers are authorized to use all reasonable force necessary to assist the physician registered nurse, qualified technician, phlebotomist or medical laboratory technician to take the samples from the body suspect. After obtaining the samples of [b]lood, the physician, registered nurse, qualified technician, phlebotomist or medical laboratory technician shall deliver the said samples to the said law enforcement officer.

Herein fail not, but have you then and there this warrant within three days, exclusive of the day of its issuance, with your return thereon, showing how you have executed the same.

The trial court denied appellant's motion and did not issue findings of fact or conclusions of law.

At trial, the trial court admitted into evidence an "Order Granting Probation" as proof of appellant's DWI conviction from 1994 and an "Order Granting Community Supervision" as proof of appellant's DWI conviction from 1998. The jury found appellant guilty of the offense, found the enhancement allegations to be true, and assessed punishment at thirty-five years imprisonment in the Texas Department of Justice Institutional Division. This appeal followed.

II. Motion to Suppress

In his first issue, appellant argues that the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress because: (1) the analysis of his blood required a second warrant because it was a separate search from the blood draw, and (2) the lab analysis was not performed within the three-day window provided for in the search warrant.

A. Standard of Review

In reviewing a trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress, appellate courts apply a bifurcated standard of review. State v. Martinez, 570 S.W.3d 278, 281 (Tex. Crim. App. 2019).

The trial court is given almost complete deference in its determination of historical facts, especially if those are based on an assessment of credibility and demeanor. The same deference is afforded the trial court with respect to its rulings on application of the law to questions of fact and to mixed questions of law and fact, if resolution of those questions depends on an evaluation of credibility and demeanor. However, for mixed questions of law and fact that do not fall within that category, a reviewing court may conduct a de novo review.

Id. Additionally, we review de novo questions of law. Id. We will sustain the trial court's ruling if it is reasonably supported by the record and is correct under any theory of law applicable to the case. State v. Dixon, 206 S.W.3d 587, 590 (Tex. Crim. App. 2006).

B. Applicable Law

The Fourth Amendment protects individuals against unreasonable searches and seizures. U.S. Const. amend. IV; see Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373, 381-82 (2014) ("[T]he ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness."); see also Tex. Const. art I, section 9. A warrantless search is per se unreasonable. Marcopoulus v. State, 538 S.W.3d 596, 599 (Tex. Crim. App. 2017); see Meekins v. State, 340 S.W.3d 454, 458 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011).

A compulsory blood draw conducted at the direction of a law enforcement officer constitutes a search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment. Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 767-68 (1966); State v. Johnston, 336 S.W.3d 649, 65758 (Tex. Crim. App. 2011). "[W]hen the State itself extracts blood from a DWI suspect, and when it is the State that conducts the subsequent blood alcohol analysis, two discrete 'searches' have occurred for Fourth Amendment purposes." State v. Huse, 491 S.W.3d 833, 840 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016); see Martinez, 570 S.W.3d at 290-91; see also State v. Hardy, 963 S.W.2d 516, 523 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997) ("Where the drawing of blood is instigated by the government, a subsequent analysis of the blood by the government agents also constitutes an invasion of a societally recognized expectation of privacy."). However,

[a] neutral magistrate who has approved a search warrant for the extraction of a blood sample, based upon a showing of probable cause to believe that a suspect has committed the offense of driving while intoxicated, has necessarily also made a finding of probable cause that justifies the chemical testing of that blood. Indeed, that is the purpose of the blood extraction. This means that the constitutional objective of the warrant requirement has been met: the interposition of a neutral magistrate's judgment between the police and the citizen to justify an intrusion by the State upon the citizen's legitimate expectation of privacy.

Crider v. State, 607 S.W.3d 305, 307-08 (Tex. Crim. App. 2020).

C. Analysis 1. Blood Analysis

Appellant first argues that the State was required to obtain a second warrant to perform the lab analysis on his blood drawn under the warrant and relies on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' opinion in Martinez v. State. See Martinez, 570 S.W.3d at 290. In Martinez, the State obtained and tested, without a warrant, Martinez's blood from vials drawn by hospital staff for medical purposes when Martinez received medical treatment after a vehicular accident. See id. at 281. Martinez was subsequently indicted for intoxication manslaughter. Id. The court of criminal appeals upheld the suppression of the analysis of Martinez's blood because the State never obtained a warrant and because Martinez had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the "private facts" contained in the blood drawn by the medical personnel.^[3] See id. at 288-92. In doing so the court of criminal appeals rejected the State's argument that Martinez had no expectation of privacy in the vials containing samples of his blood and...