State v. Aguilar

• Decision Date: 11 June 1997
• Docket Number: Nos. 691-95,690-95,s. 691-95
• Citation: 947 S.W.2d 257
• Parties: The STATE of Texas, Appellant, v. Mark AGUILAR, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

Page 257

947 S.W.2d 257

The STATE of Texas, Appellant, v. Mark AGUILAR, Appellee.

Nos. 691-95, 690-95.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas En Banc.

June 11, 1997.

George Scharmen, San Antonio, for appellant.

Margaret M. Fent, Assistant Dist. Atty., San Antonio, Matthew Paul, State's Atty., Austin, for the State.

Before the court en banc.

OPINION ON APPELLEE'S PETITION FOR DISCRETIONARY REVIEW

MANSFIELD, Judge.

Appellee was arrested and charged with the offenses of driving while intoxicated and resisting arrest, alleged to have occurred on May 15, 1994. The trial court determined that the State lacked probable cause to stop appellee's automobile, basing its conclusion upon the doctrine of collateral estoppel. The trial court, therefore, granted appellee's motion to suppress all evidence derivative of the stop. The court of appeals reversed. State v. Aguilar, 901 S.W.2d 740 (Tex.App.--San Antonio 1995). We granted review, pursuant to Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 200(c)(1), to determine whether the State's method of license revocation in an administrative driver's license revocation proceeding bars the application of collateral estoppel in a later criminal proceeding.

RELEVANT FACTS

Immediately following appellee's arrest for operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated and resisting arrest, a law-enforcement officer requested that appellee provide a sample of his breath. Appellee refused to provide a sample. Consequently, appellee was given notice of suspension of his Texas operator's license pursuant to Texas Revised Civil Statutes art. 6701l-5. Appellee retained counsel and requested an administrative hearing. The administrative hearing was held in a municipal court of Bexar County, and appellee appeared by counsel. The Department of Public Safety was represented by an examiner who was not an attorney.

The municipal court, acting in its administrative capacity, found against the Department, and it made the following finding of fact:

The State of Texas acknowledged that no probable cause for arrest was presented in this administrative proceeding, and the court finds that there was no probable cause alleged for the arrest of defendant....

Therefore it is ORDERED that the Petition is dismissed for lack of probable cause.

Based upon this finding, the municipal court found the pleadings in support of the revocation request to be insufficient, and the court entered a negative finding, denying the Department's revocation request. The Department declined to appeal this conclusion.

The State then proceeded with its criminal case against appellee in a county court at law. At a pre-trial hearing before the trial court, appellee filed a motion to suppress all the evidence resulting from the arrest, contending that the arresting officer lacked probable cause to initiate a stop. ¹ Further, appellee argued that the critical issue of probable cause could not be relitigated under the doctrine of collateral estoppel, citing the administrative proceeding. The trial court agreed with appellee, adopted the findings and conclusions of the administrative judge, and granted the motion to suppress. The State appealed.

The Fourth Court of Appeals reversed, holding that appellee failed to establish the elements necessary to invoke the doctrine of collateral estoppel. The court of appeals further held that the administrative judge did not purport to resolve the issue of probable cause in the abstract; rather, the administrative judge merely found that probable cause was not alleged or presented in the documentary evidence supplied by the hearing examiner. Hence, the issue relevant to the second proceeding--the existence of probable cause--was different from the first. The court of appeals declined to defer to the factual findings of the trial court because the "record does not support the trial court's granting of the motion to suppress." State v. Aguilar, supra, at 742.

RELEVANT LAW

Collateral estoppel is one of the protections provided by the Fifth Amendment guarantee against double jeopardy. Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 445, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 1195, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970); Warren v. State, 514 S.W.2d 458, 462 (Tex.Crim.App.1974). The Supreme Court defined collateral estoppel in Ashe:

"Collateral estoppel" is an awkward phrase, but it stands for an extremely important principle in our adversary system of justice. It means simply that when an issue of ultimate fact has once been determined by a valid and final judgment, that issue cannot again be litigated between the same parties in any future lawsuit. Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. at 443, 90 S.Ct. at 1194.

Importantly, the collateral estoppel protections--given effect through the double jeopardy clause--may have application even if one of the proceedings under analysis is labeled "civil" or "administrative." U.S. v. Halper, 490 U.S. 435, 447-48, 109 S.Ct. 1892, 1901, 104 L.Ed.2d 487 (1989); Ex parte Tarver, 725 S.W.2d 195, 199 (Tex.Crim.App.1986). Thus, it is of no consequence to the analysis of the case at bar that a license revocation proceeding is deemed "administrative."

Whether a factual finding made pursuant to a prior "administrative" or "civil" proceeding creates a collateral bar to a contrary factual finding in a later proceeding is determined on a case by case basis. In this context we have adopted the functional test propounded by the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Utah Construction and Mining Company, 384 U.S. 394, 421-22, 86 S.Ct. 1545, 1559-60, 16 L.Ed.2d 642 (1966):

When an administrative agency is acting in a judicial capacity and resolves disputed issues of fact properly before it which the parties have had an adequate opportunity to litigate, the courts have not hesitated to apply res judicata to enforce repose. Tarver, 725 S.W.2d at 199.

In Tarver we went on to apply the test developed in Utah Construction:

To the extent that an [administrative proceeding] involves a trial court acting as finder of fact, after a full hearing on an issue at which both the State and an accused are represented by counsel, the court is certainly "acting in a judicial capacity." To that extent, therefore, we must determine whether the Ashe v. Swenson test was met. The questions to be asked are: Has a fact issue already been determined, adversely to the State, in a valid and final judgment between the same parties? Is the State now trying to relitigate that same fact issue? Tarver, supra.

From Tarver we glean the elements necessary to support collateral bar. First, there must be a "full hearing" at which the parties had an opportunity to thoroughly and fairly litigate the relevant fact issue. Second, the fact issue must be the same in both proceedings. ² And finally, the fact finder must have acted in a judicial capacity. These requirements are meant to ensure that the doctrine of collateral estoppel properly restricts the State to only reliable factual findings. In addition, the defendant has the burden of establishing the preceding requirements in order to invoke the doctrine of collateral estoppel. Ladner v. State, 780 S.W.2d 247, 258 (Tex.Crim.App.1989).

Finally, an appellate court should not disturb the factual findings of a trial court absent an abuse of discretion. Freeman v. State, 723 S.W.2d 727, 729 (Tex.Crim.App.1986). Thus, appellate deference to a trial court's factual findings in this context is mandated unless an appellate court concludes that the record fails, utterly, to support the factual finding. State v. Groves, 837 S.W.2d 103, 106 (Tex.Crim.App.1992).

ANALYSIS

Application of the relevant law to the facts at bar indicates the court of appeals correctly found that appellee failed to demonstrate the applicability of collateral estoppel. At the suppression hearing, appellee introduced only the ruling of the administrative judge. Appellee also testified, establishing only that he was the same person involved in both the administrative proceeding and the criminal prosecution. The State responded by presenting Marilyn Burrier, the hearing examiner employed by the Department who handled appellee's case. The court of appeals succinctly summarized her testimony: (1) she was not a lawyer but only an examiner for the Department, (2) the administrative hearing was informal, consisting only of the municipal judge reviewing the documents filed by the Department, (3) the State was not represented by legal counsel at any time in the hearing, (4) no witnesses were presented by either side, (5) in such administrative hearings, the municipal judge customarily rules against the Department when the charging officer fails to allege probable cause in the documents reviewed by the judge, (6) the charging officer in this case failed to allege probable cause, and the ruling was against the Department, as expected, (7) it is not customary for the Department to appeal the rulings of a municipal judge in this context, and (8) the ruling was not appealed in this case.

Appellee failed to demonstrate the requisite elements to support his claim of collateral estoppel. There is no evidence in the record that the parties had an opportunity to thoroughly and fairly litigate the probable cause fact issue. Indeed, the only evidence presented at the suppression hearing was to the contrary: The State did not have an opportunity to adequately litigate the issue of probable cause at the administrative hearing. The record indicates that no live testimony was proffered at the revocation proceeding and that the issue of probable cause was never directly addressed. The record suggests only that the arresting officer misfiled his DIC-23 ³, failing to state the basis for probable cause.

Further, appellee failed to demonstrate that the issues presented in the two proceedings were identical: The administrative court ostensibly ruled that the documents before it failed to indicate the basis of the officer's stop, not that the officer lacked probable cause to stop appellee. ⁴

Appel...