State v. Mazuca

• Decision Date: 12 September 2012
• Docket Number: No. PD–1035–11.,PD–1035–11.
• Citation: 375 S.W.3d 294
• Parties: The STATE of Texas v. Alvaro MAZUCA, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

375 S.W.3d 294

The STATE of Texas

v.Alvaro MAZUCA, Appellee.

No. PD–1035–11.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

May 23, 2012.

Rehearing Denied Sept. 12, 2012.

Janet Burnett, El Paso County Public Defender's Office, El Paso, for Appellant.

Tom A. Darnold, Asst. D.A., El Paso, Lisa C. McMinn, State's Attorney, Austin, for State.

OPINION

PRICE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court in which KEASLER, HERVEY, COCHRAN and ALCALA, JJ., joined.

In this felony prosecution for possession of ecstasy, 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 The El Paso Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's ruling in an unpublished opinion, holding that the appellee's initial detention was illegal and that the taint emanating from the initial illegality was not attenuated by the fact that, immediately 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.¹ We granted the State's petition for discretionary review to examine this holding and now reverse.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL POSTURE

Motion to Suppress

The appellee was indicted for the offense of possession with intent to deliver more than four but less than 400 grams of methylenedioxy methamphetamine, popularly known as ecstasy, a first degree felony offense.² Prior to trial, the appellee filed a motion to suppress evidence stemming from his initial detention in this case. At a pre-trial hearing on March 19, 2009, the State's only witness was the arresting officer, El Paso Police Officer Christopher Grijalva.

Grijalva testified that, on December 11, 2008, he was assigned to patrol the Sunland Park Mall area on the west side of El Paso, along with his partner, Officer Mike Chavez. Grijalva and Chavez were part of the Westside Regional Command Center TAC patrol, a unit that does not respond to routine patrol calls but instead performs specific assignments. On this particular day, the TAC patrol was tasked with looking for traffic violators. At approximately 10:00 p.m., the officers were conducting a separate traffic stop when Grijalva noticed a yellow Mustang that pulled into the parking lot of the mall with what Grijalva perceived to be defective taillights. The taillights appeared to Grijalva to emit white light, whereas by statute they should be red.³ Once they completed their traffic stop, Grijalva and Chavez once again observed the yellow Mustang, now parked in the mall parking lot. At around 10:20 p.m., they observed the Mustang begin to move again. After alerting other members of the TAC patrol, they stopped it for the perceived taillight infraction. They had no other reason to stop the Mustang—they did not suspect the occupants of any other crime, nor were they aware that the occupants might be the subject of any outstanding warrants.

While Chavez checked the driver's identification and proof of financial responsibility, Grijalva approached the passenger side of the Mustang, where the appellee sat, and asked the appellee for identification. Without speaking, the appellee produced a driver's license, and both Chavez and Grijalva returned to their squad car to check for outstanding warrants. When their computer showed that the appellee had at least a pair of outstanding warrants, they contacted the warrants office and confirmed that the warrants were active. ⁴ Grijalva returned to the passenger side of the Mustang and asked the appellee to step out. When the appellee complied, Grijalva asked him whether he was aware that he had outstanding warrants, to which the appellee “kind of looked at [Grijalva] and then said yes, I know I have warrants.” Grijalva then “escorted” the appellee to the squad car and “asked him to put his hands on the vehicle.” Intending to pat the appellee down for safety purposes, Grijalva first “asked him if he had anything illegal on him, any weapons or anything else. At which point he stated yes, he did.” When Grijalva asked him what he had, the appellee answered that there was ecstasy in a black pouch in his right front pants pocket. Grijalva subsequently “placed [the appellee] into custody,” patted him down, discovered and seized the ecstasy as well as a small baggie of marijuana, and then put the appellee in the back seat of the squad car. The appellee volunteered that the Mustang belonged to his cousin, and that there was “a black zippered bag under the front passenger seat” that did not belong to his cousin. Grijalva retrieved the bag and found that it contained additional baggies of marijuana.

The owner and driver of the Mustang, Isaac Medina, testified for the defense at the motion to suppress hearing. Five years before the traffic stop he had modified his taillights to include “some clear rear lights,” but they retained “red lights in the middle[.]” Medina had never before gotten a ticket, and the car had always passed the annual state inspection. He denied that his Mustang ever “had any white or—any white emitting taillights.” Photographs of the rear of the Mustang were introduced into evidence showing the condition of the taillights as of the time of the traffic stop. The State then recalled Grijalva to the stand and showed him the photographs, which were taken in daylight. Grijalva maintained that the taillights looked much different when illuminated at night. Asked whether, on the night of the stop, “there was any red emminating [sic] from those ... taillights?”, he replied: “There was mostly white. From what I distinctly saw it was mostly white. I don't recall if we got close and saw that there was any red. But the white dominated the red color.”

Counsel for appellee urged the trial court to discount Grijalva's testimony.

[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: Your Honor, I believe that the Court has the photographs of the taillights in front of him. And as you see the taillights have a clear casing. The bulbs themselves are red. You can see that. You have them in front of you. The light would either be red or not lit at all. And I think the officer's testimony to the contrary is not credible and not believable.⁵

For her part, the prosecutor reminded the trial court that the photographs had been taken in daylight and that Grijalva had observed them at night. She argued, alternatively, that even if the stop was illegal, “there is case law out there that states that if there is a warrant out for the defendant, an illegal stop doesn't taint the warrants for the arrest.” ⁶ The trial court asked the prosecutor to produce those cases and took the matter under advisement.

Trial Court's Findings and Conclusions

On March 25, 2009, the trial court signed an order granting the appellee's motion to suppress but did not enter findings of fact and conclusions of law. That same day, the State filed a request for findings of fact and conclusions of law.⁷ On April 9, 2009, the trial court duly entered written findings and conclusions.⁸ Those findings and conclusions, in relevant part, read:

FINDINGS OF FACT:

1. On December 11, 2008, at approximately 10:20 p.m. Officer Grijalva and Officer Chavez of the El Paso Police Department detained a yellow Mustang vehicle in the parking lot of the Linens n Things on the Westside of El Paso, Texas.

2. The trial court having heard the testimony and having evaluated the demeanor of the witnesses finds that Officer Chavez's [sic: Grijalva] testimony that he had a reasonable belief that Transportation Code 547.322 had been violated to not be credible.

3. The trial court having heard the testimony and having evaluated the demeanor of the witnesses finds that Officer Chavez [sic] did not have a reasonable belief that the yellow Mustang had white lights to the rear.

4. The trial court having evaluated and heard the testimony of Isaac Medina finds his testimony to be credible and that the photographs admitted as Defense exhibits 1–6 fairly and accurately depict the vehicle and [its] lights as they appeared when the vehicle was stopped on December 11, 2008.

* * *

7. The trial court finds that [the] yellow Mustang's [taillights] emitted red light on December 11, 2008.

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11. The trial court having evaluated the credibility of the witnesses finds that there was no other reason for the detained [sic] of the vehicle other than white lights to the rear.

* * *

14. The trial court finds that [the appellee] was not read his Miranda warnings.

15. The trial court finds that the questioning of [the appellee] and the discovery of contraband were not only in close temporal proximity but were in fact almost simultaneous.

* * *

17. The trial court finds that [the appellee] did not volunteer any information but rather answered the [officer's] questions when he provided his identifying information.

18. The trial court finds that [the appellee] was not free to leave from the time that the yellow Mustang that he was a passenger in was detained.

19. The trial court finds that [the appellee] was placed under arrest for outstanding warrants after he was detained and questioned by Officer Chavez [sic] after being a passenger in the yellow [M]ustang that was detained by Officer Chavez and Officer Grijalva.

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW[:]

1. The driver of the Mustang did not violate Section 547.322 of the Transportation Code on December 11, 2008.

2. The Police Officers did not have probable cause or reasonable suspicion to perform a traffic stop on that date.

3. The arrest warrants of the Defendant did not purge the taint of the illegal stops due to the flagrancy of the police action, the close temporal proximity and the fact that no Miranda warnings were read.

From these findings and conclusions, the State appealed.⁹

On Appeal

The court of appeals deferred to the trial court's credibility determination with respect to Grijalva's testimony regarding the basis of the stop and held accordingly that the arresting officers “lacked justification to make...