Matthews v. State

• Citation: 165 S.W.3d 104
• Decision Date: 28 April 2005
• Docket Number: No. 2-03-149-CR.,2-03-149-CR.
• Parties: Douglas Wayne MATTHEWS, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, State.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

165 S.W.3d 104

Douglas Wayne MATTHEWS, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, State.

No. 2-03-149-CR.

Court of Appeals of Texas, Fort Worth.

April 28, 2005.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

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Richard Charles Kline, Fort Worth, TX, for Appellant.

Tim Curry, Criminal District Attorney, Charles M. Mallin, Curtis Jenkins, Elizabeth Bourland and Theresa Austin, Assistant Criminal District Attorneys, Fort Worth, TX, for Appellee.

PANEL A: LIVINGSTON, DAUPHINOT, and McCOY, JJ.

OPINION

LEE ANN DAUPHINOT, Justice.

Appellant Douglas Wayne Matthews appeals from a pretrial ruling denying his motion to suppress, after which he entered his plea of guilty pursuant to a plea bargain agreement to the charge of possessing four or more grams but less than two hundred grams of cocaine with the intent to deliver. The trial court convicted him and sentenced him to thirty years' confinement in the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Because we hold that the trial court erred in denying Appellant's motion to suppress, we reverse the trial court's judgment and remand this case for a new trial.

BACKGROUND FACTS

The Search and Arrest

The record before us reveals three searches — the search of a truck, the search of a gym bag located within the truck, and the search of a shaving kit inside the gym bag.

The police arrived with a warrant to search Appellant's cousin's house, including all vehicles and detached buildings within the curtilage, and to arrest a man named "Doug." While executing the warrant, the police did not find anyone in the house. They did find people in the detached garage within the fence surrounding the lot on which the house was located. The police patted down all the people in the garage, laid them face down on the floor, and cuffed them. The police asked Appellant for his name and he said, "Doug." The police noticed that a green truck was parked on the curb and searched the truck. The truck was driven by Appellant but was owned by his mother. The police arrested Appellant for possession of crack cocaine they found in a shaving kit inside a gym bag inside the truck.

Appellant was indicted on two counts of possession of a controlled substance, namely cocaine, of four grams or more, but less than two hundred grams, with the intent to deliver. The indictment also contained a repeat offender notice. Appellant filed a motion to suppress the evidence, which the trial court denied. Appellant then agreed to a plea bargain, reserving the right to appeal the denial of the motion to suppress.

The Warrant and Suppression Hearing

The warrant authorized the search of "all vehicles and detached buildings within the curtilage therein named." Sergeant Stanford testified for the State that there were several vehicles parked in the street and that Appellant's truck, also parked in the street, had one wheel in the driveway. He testified that Appellant admitted that it was his truck. When he asked Appellant his name, Appellant replied that it was Doug. Sergeant Stanford testified,

I knew that the search warrant listed a man by the name of Doug, that the descriptions given to me on the search warrant and by Officer Broadwater closely matched the Defendant. I then asked the Defendant if he would mind if I searched his truck. He said "Go ahead."

I asked him where the keys were. He said his right front pocket, so I reached into his right front pocket and removed the keys.

A different officer, Officer Blaydes, actually conducted the search of the truck. Behind the driver's seat, between the driver and passenger seats, he found a gym bag that contained a shaving kit. Inside the shaving kit, he located a rock of crack cocaine. Officer Blaydes said the truck was on the edge of the driveway and curb line, straddling the curb line and the end of the driveway. He could not say how many tires were actually on the driveway. Blaydes did know that there were several cars parked on and around the property and testified that there might have been another vehicle in the driveway.

Although Officer Blaydes testified that someone ran the plates of the truck to determine the registered owner, there was no evidence of the result of the record search. He did not know who provided the keys to the truck.

Appellant testified that his truck was parked on the street with no part of it in the driveway. Two cars were in the driveway. One had been there a couple of months at the time of the arrest, and State's exhibits 2 and 3, photographs taken at a later time, showed that it had three flat tires. The State and Appellant agreed that the truck Appellant drove belonged to his mother and that Appellant and his mother lived at the same address. His testimony that he drove the truck with his mother's permission was uncontroverted. Appellant testified that he did not give anyone consent to search the truck.

At the suppression hearing, the State argued,

First of all, it's our contention that it was a consensual search; and secondly, the officers had probable cause to search this vehicle. It's in the search warrant, which has been admitted as State's Exhibit 1, that they listed all vehicles within the curtilage. And they had probable cause because they knew it was his car. They knew that this car was driven by a person who in the past had dealt drugs at this location. They know this because there's an undercover buy that they set up.

It's parked half in the curtilage, little bit in the street. It was partially in the street, partially in the driveway. It's within the curtilage.

In addition, the automobile exception, because of the mobility of vehicles and the destructibility of evidence, it is also our contention that this was a good search.

The State also argued in the trial court, as it does on appeal, that Appellant lacked standing to challenge the search because the truck was not Appellant's. That is, the State argued that the police search of the truck was lawful because the truck was Appellant's but that Appellant lacked standing to challenge the search because the truck was not his.

The trial court found that the accepted definition of curtilage was inappropriate in an urban setting and redefined curtilage to include the public street running beside the property described in the warrant. The court found that the vehicle parked in the street was parked within the curtilage of the house because it was parked on the street that touched the property discussed in the search warrant.

The trial court also found that the automobile could be searched pursuant to the automobile exception to the warrant requirement. The court declined to find that Appellant voluntarily consented to the search. The court limited its ruling to a finding that the truck was searched within the scope of the warrant because the street was part of the curtilage and "lawful to be searched independent of the scope of the warrant based upon the information known to the officers and the circumstances ... which is implied in the record." The trial judge also stated, "It's inferential in the record that other substances were found on the persons, the details of which are not in the record, so I wouldn't speculate by adding more fat to the fire of the issue of probable cause to search the vehicle at the scene." The trial court found the record insufficient to show Appellant was the person named in the warrant. The court also found the record insufficient to determine whether Appellant had standing and consequently assumed standing in hearing and denying Appellant's motion to suppress.

LEGAL ANALYSIS

Standing

Before we reach the merits of Appellant's complaints, we must first address the issue of standing. The State argues on appeal, as it did in the trial court, that Appellant had no standing to challenge the search of the truck he was driving. Yet at the hearing on the motion to suppress, the State argued, "[I]t's our contention that it was a consensual search; and secondly, the officers had probable cause to search this vehicle.... [T]hey had probable cause because they knew it was his car."

The State adopts inconsistent positions. It argues on the one hand that Appellant had no standing to contest the search of the truck because it was not his truck and at the same time that Appellant exercised sufficient exclusive care, custody, and control of the truck to establish the nexus between the contents, including the contents of a shaving kit inside a gym bag inside the truck, and himself. While a party may take alternative positions, a party may not take inconsistent positions in a judicial proceeding.

We addressed the circumstances under which a party may be judicially estopped from taking inconsistent positions in judicial proceedings in Goldman v. White Rose Distributing Company:¹

Judicial estoppel holds that a party who has made a sworn statement in a pleading, a deposition, oral testimony, or affidavits in a judicial proceeding is judicially estopped from maintaining a contrary position in a subsequent proceeding. The doctrine is based on public policy that prohibits a litigant from maintaining inconsistent positions in separate judicial proceedings. The purpose of the doctrine is "to uphold the sanctity of the oath and to prevent abuse of the judicial process."

....

White Rose claims that the statements made by its attorney during the first trial cannot be considered in determining judicial estoppel because that doctrine only applies to statements made under oath. However, an attorney is an officer of the court and, as such, is "an instrument or agency to advance the ends of justice." An attorney may bind a party to a particular position. Indeed, courts routinely rely on counsel's statements during oral argument and rely on these representations when deciding cases.²

We hold that the State is judicially estopped from arguing that Appellant lacked standing to challenge the search of the vehicle that the State argued in the...