State v. Elias
| Decision Date | 06 April 2011 |
| Docket Number | No. PD–0735–10.,PD–0735–10. |
| Citation | 339 S.W.3d 667 |
| Parties | The STATE of Texasv.Abran ELIAS, Appellee. |
| Court | Texas Court of Criminal Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Eduardo N. Lerma, Sr., El Paso, for Appellant.Lily Stroud, Asst. D.A., El Paso, Lisa C. McMinn, State's Attorney, Austin, for State.
PRICE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court in which MEYERS, KEASLER, HERVEY and COCHRAN, JJ., joined.
In this felony prosecution for possession of marihuana, the State appealed from the trial court's grant of the appellee's motion to suppress evidence that the appellee contended was obtained as a result of an illegal traffic stop. The El Paso Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's ruling in an unpublished opinion, holding that the appellee's initial detention was not justified by specific articulable facts to show that a traffic violation occurred, and that the search could not be otherwise justified by the fact that, after the initial stop, the appellee was found to have an outstanding arrest warrant that might give rise to a valid search incident to arrest because by the time the search of the vehicle was conducted, the appellee had been secured in the back of a squad car.1 We granted the State's petition for discretionary review to examine both holdings and now vacate the judgment of the court of appeals and remand for further proceedings.
The appellee was indicted for the offense of possession of more than 2000 pounds of marihuana, essentially a first degree felony carrying the possibility of an enhanced fine.2 Prior to trial, the appellee filed a motion to suppress evidence stemming from his detention in this case and a pretrial hearing was conducted. Only one witness testified at the pretrial hearing, El Paso County Sheriff's Deputy Eduardo Sanchez, Jr.
Sanchez testified that he was a K–9 officer assigned to the metro narcotics task force. At around 1:00 p.m. on September 7, 2007, Sanchez was “driving around” with his narcotics-sniffing dog when he received a radio call from Detective Benjamin Perales. Perales advised Sanchez to be on the lookout for a white cargo van that Perales suspected “was possibly loaded with narcotics.” At around 2:00 p.m., Sanchez was traveling about fifty miles per hour, northbound on Zaragosa, when he approached a street to his left that terminated at Zaragosa, Sombra del Sol. Before reaching the intersection, Sanchez noticed a white Chevy van, “positioned and in a situation where it would have to make a right hand turn” from Sombra del Sol onto Zaragosa. As he approached the van, Sanchez noticed “that it [didn't] have any signal directions whether either turning right or left.” Sanchez passed the van and then observed it make a right turn onto Zaragosa, heading south. Turning around on Zaragosa, Sanchez conducted a traffic stop of the van “[b]ecause it failed to signal a right turn from the stop.”
The appellee was alone in the van. He appeared to Sanchez to be nervous, having attempted to get out of the driver's seat before he had even unfastened his seat belt. Though he had no driver's license or proof of insurance, the appellee was able to produce a Texas ID card with the correct name, date of birth, and a photo. When Sanchez asked the appellee why he appeared so nervous, the appellee replied, “Well, I think I have some warrants.” Sanchez confirmed with his dispatcher that this was in fact the case; the appellee had warrants out “for a disregarded stop sign, failure to appear and failure to maintain financial responsibility.” Sanchez then advised the appellee that he had been stopped for failing to signal a turn, and the appellee “agreed that he had not signaled.” By this time, another deputy had arrived on the scene, and the appellee was placed under arrest. Knowing that this could be the van that Perales suspected of containing narcotics, Sanchez “got [his] canine out of [his] unit and ran an exterior K–9 sniff of the vehicle.” The drug dog alerted at both the driver's side window, which was rolled down, and at the rear double doors of the van. Sanchez then entered the van and found approximately 300 pounds of marihuana in duffle bags and boxes. From the initial traffic stop to the discovery of the marihuana, Sanchez estimated, only a period of twenty minutes elapsed. Subsequently, a search warrant was obtained for the appellee's residence where police found the balance of the 2000 pounds of marihuana.
On cross-examination, Sanchez first admitted that he had said nothing in his offense report about the appellee actually admitting that he failed to signal a right turn. Next, the following critical exchange occurred between Sanchez and defense counsel:
Q. All right. Now, you testified that you passed [the appellee] while he was stationary in a lawful stop—you passed him on Zaragosa. He was stationary at Sombra del Sol?
A. Uh-huh.
Q. Now, you passed him?
A. Uh-huh.
Q. And you moved on on Zaragosa. How far did you move down when you observed the failure to signal intent?
A. How far did I move down after—I'm sorry.
Q. Yes.
A. What was the question?
Q. You passed him?
A. Uh-huh.
Q. And he was stopped. He was stationary on Sombra del Sol?
A. Uh-huh.
Q. Am I correct?
A. Yes.
Q. All right. Then, you passed him. How far did you travel down Zaragosa?
A. About maybe 30 yards.
Q. 30 yards?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And you were able to see from 30 yards back that he made his right turn onto Zaragosa—
A. Yes, sir.
Q. —without signaling intent?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Sir?
A. I saw that there was no turning signal when I passed him. As soon as I passed him, he had—
Q. Now, listen to my question now. You passed him?
A. Uh-huh.
Q. He was stationary?
A. Uh-huh.
Q. He hadn't initiated his right turn—
A. Right.
Q. —onto Zaragosa?
A. Uh-huh.
Q. And you passed him?
A. Uh-huh.
Q. And you were proceeding down Zaragosa south, I believe?
A. No. It was—
Q. Going north?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. All right. You were north. And you're saying that you—from that vantage point, you saw him from a stationary position fail to signal intent?
A. Okay. I—
Q. Yes or no? That's all.
A. Well, it's because the question you're asking me, sir, I can't—
Q. Well, did you see him, Officer? You had passed him. You testified to that.
A. Yes, yes.
Q. You passed him—
A. Uh-huh.
Q. —and he was stationary. He hadn't committed a ticketable offense yet, had he?
A. No. He was stationary.
Q. All right. You passed him. You proceeded 30 yards away on Zaragosa.
A. Uh-huh.
Q. Now, how is it that you saw him fail to signal intent from your vantage point?
A. I didn't.
Q. You didn't?
A. No.
The prosecutor immediately took Sanchez on redirect, however, and had him testify that he was aware that Texas law requires a motorist to signal for at least “[a] hundred feet” before making a turn.3 Not to be outdone, defense counsel then countered on re-cross:
Q. But your ticketable offense, Officer, is not that he failed to signal within a hundred feet—that he failed to signal intent to make a right turn. That's what you've stated in your [warrant affidavit for the search of the residence] and your [offense report].
A. Uh-huh.
Q. Sir?
A. Yes.
The trial court then interposed a question, apparently asking Sanchez to clarify whether the appellee had been within a hundred feet of making his turn when Sanchez observed him without a turn signal:
With this, Sanchez's testimony came to a close.
In his summation to the trial court, the appellee stressed Sanchez's admission that he had not seen whether the appellee may have been signaling a turn at the moment at which he turned right from a stationary position because by that time Sanchez had already passed by the intersection. There was therefore no evidence, the appellee argued, that the appellee committed the particular traffic infraction that Sanchez purported to stop him for. As for any failure on the appellee's part to signal a turn within a hundred feet of the intersection, the appellee argued that this proposition was “speculative at best”—apparently because the appellee was stationary when Sanchez observed him failing to signal a turn, rather than moving.4 The State replied, first of all, that because Sanchez was able to see that the appellee did not have his turn signal on—at least as he sat stationary at the intersection—“therefore, he did violate the law.” Moreover, the State argued, once Sanchez discovered that the appellee had warrants out for his arrest, the search that came after the appellee was arrested pursuant to those warrants was not the fruit of any illegality stemming from the initial detention because the warrants would attenuate the taint of any such initial illegality. For this proposition, the State cited, inter alia, Reed v. State.5
The trial court took the case under advisement. Prior to the trial court's ruling, the appellee filed a memorandum of law in which he argued that Sanchez had admitted that he failed to witness a “ticketable offense,” and that the offense that Sanchez had declared in his police report that he stopped the appellee for, failure to signal a turn at all, was not supported by articulable facts, since Sanchez admitted he had not actually seen whether the appellee was signaling at the moment he executed the turn. The trial court subsequently entered written findings of fact and conclusions of law.6 The pertinent findings of fact are as follows:
2. Deputy Sanchez passed the van going approximately 50 miles per hour and drove 30 yards north on Zaragosa, then turned around and conducted a traffic stop of the van, that was traveling south on Zaragosa, for the driver's alleged failure to signal an intent to make a right turn at the intersection.
3. Deputy Sanchez testified that he did not see the [appellee] fail to signal intent to...
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