State v. Rodriguez

• Decision Date: 24 September 2015
• Docket Number: No. 11-13-00277-CR.,11-13-00277-CR.
• Citation: 529 S.W.3d 81
• Parties: The STATE of Texas, Appellant v. Mikenzie Renee RODRIGUEZ, Appellee
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

529 S.W.3d 81

The STATE of Texas, Appellant

v.Mikenzie Renee RODRIGUEZ, Appellee

No. 11-13-00277-CR.

Court of Appeals of Texas, Eastland.

Opinion filed September 24, 2015

Discretionary Review Granted February 24, 2016

Michael Murray, District Attorney and Elisha Bird, Assistant, for The State of Texas.

Matthew Wright and Sharon Diaz, for Mikenzie Renee Rodriguez.

Panel consists of: Wright, C.J., Willson, J., and Bailey, J.

OPINION

JOHN M. BAILEY, JUSTICE

Mikenzie Renee Rodriguez was indicted for possession of a controlled substance. See TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE ANN. § 481.115 (West 2010). She filed a pretrial motion to suppress in which she challenged the search of her college dorm room and any statements she made in connection with her arrest. The trial court granted her motion, and the State appealed. We affirm.

Background Facts

Appellee was a student at Howard Payne University, a private university in Brownwood. Appellee lived on campus in Veda Hodge Hall. In September 2012, Miriam Mackey and Catherine Mullaney, the resident assistants on duty, conducted a room check of Appellee's dorm room. They conducted this room search pursuant to their duties as resident assistants in accordance with the policies and procedures of Howard Payne University for students living in on-campus housing. The room check was not performed at the request of any law enforcement agency.

Mackey and Mullaney found a baggie of marihuana in a trunk located in Appellee's room. Mackey and Mullaney contacted Nancy Pryor, the resident director at Howard Payne University, to report this discovery. Pryor instructed Mackey and Mullaney to thoroughly search the room. They subsequently found two pills inside a box of matches and a marihuana pipe wrapped in a sock. They placed the items in the middle of the floor of the dorm room. Pryor then called Howard Payne University's Department of Public Safety.

Officer Robert Pacatte, with the Howard Payne University Department of Public Safety, responded to the call. Pryor initially met Officer Pacatte at the entrance to the dorm. He subsequently accompanied Pryor to Appellee's dorm room. Officer Pacatte stepped inside the dorm room and saw the items on the floor. He did so without obtaining a search warrant or consent from either Appellee or her roommate. Officer Pacatte took pictures of the items and spoke with Adrienne Sanchez, Appellee's roommate. Sanchez informed him that the items belonged to Appellee.

Officer Pacatte then contacted the Brownwood Police Department. The Brownwood Police Department and the Howard Payne University Department of Public Safety had an interlocal agreement concerning crimes committed on campus. Corporal Aaron Taylor of the Brownwood Police Department responded to the dorm room. Appellee arrived at her dorm room later. She was given her Miranda¹ warnings, and she admitted that the items were hers.

Appellee filed a motion to suppress the evidence seized and any statements made before, during, or after the search. The trial court held a hearing on the motion and, after initially taking the matter under advisement, granted Appellee's motion to suppress. The trial court subsequently entered written findings of fact and conclusions of law.

Analysis

The State asserts four issues challenging the trial court's ruling on the motion to suppress. We note at the outset that the State has limited rights of appeal in criminal cases. See TEX.CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 44.01 (West Supp. 2014). The State is entitled to appeal an order of a court in a criminal case that grants a motion to suppress evidence if jeopardy has not attached and if the elected prosecutor certifies to the trial court that the appeal is not taken for the purpose of delay and that the suppressed evidence is of substantial importance to the case. Id. art. 44.01(a)(5). The elected district attorney for Brown County personally signed the notice of appeal filed in this case certifying the matters required to invoke this court's jurisdiction to review the trial court's interlocutory order granting the motion to suppress. See State v. Redus, 445 S.W.3d 151, 154–55 (Tex.Crim.App.2014).

A trial court's ruling on a suppression motion is reviewed on appeal for an abuse of discretion, with almost complete deference given to its determination of historical facts, especially if those facts are based on an assessment of credibility and demeanor. See Arguellez v. State, 409 S.W.3d 657, 662 (Tex.Crim.App.2013) (citing Crain v. State, 315 S.W.3d 43, 48 (Tex.Crim.App.2010) ). 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. Id. For mixed questions of law and fact that do not fall within that category, a reviewing court may conduct a de novo review. Id. We review de novo a trial court's application of the law to the facts. Wade v. State, 422 S.W.3d 661, 667 (Tex.Crim.App.2013) ; Valtierra v. State, 310 S.W.3d 442, 447 (Tex.Crim.App.2010). Regardless of whether the trial court granted or denied the motion, appellate courts view the evidence in the light most favorable to the ruling. Wade, 422 S.W.3d at 666 ; State v. Woodard, 341 S.W.3d 404, 410 (Tex.Crim.App.2011). If the trial court makes express findings of fact, as the court did in this case, we review the evidence in the light most favorable to the trial court's ruling and determine whether the evidence supports these factual findings. Valtierra, 310 S.W.3d at 447.

In its first issue, the State argues that the trial court erred by granting Appellee's motion to suppress "when Appellee does not allege any wrongdoing on the part of university officials who located and seized the evidence, because the actions of law enforcement did not implicate the Fourth Amendment." The State contends that Officer Pacatte's "action of stepping across the threshold of Appellee's dorm room and viewing the contraband laying exposed to view on the floor" did not implicate the Fourth Amendment. The State argues that, "[o]nce university officials located a controlled substance in Appellee's room," Appellee no longer had "a subjective expectation of privacy that law enforcement would not be called to her dorm room" that society would recognize as reasonable. The State suggests that we should apply the analysis from State v. Hardy to conclude that Appellee could not have had a reasonable, subjective expectation of privacy that law enforcement would not be called in these circumstances. State v. Hardy, 963 S.W.2d 516, 523–24 (Tex.Crim.App.1997). The State also challenges the trial court's express finding that the Howard Payne University Department of Public Safety and the Brownwood Police Department conducted a search.

We note at the outset that the State did not argue this theory at the suppression hearing. Instead, the State argued that there was no state action because the resident assistants were the actors that conducted the search. The State also argued that the incriminating evidence was in plain view of Officer Pacatte upon his arrival at Appellee's dorm room. Nevertheless, the trial court entered written findings of fact and conclusions of law that implicitly overruled the theory now advanced by the State. These findings of fact and conclusions of law are as follows:

Findings of Fact

....

23. Howard Payne University Department of Public Safety and the City of Brownwood Police Department entered the residence of Adrienne Sanchez and [Appellee] when neither occupant was present and conducted a search that included—taking photographs of the room, investigating, and looking around the room. The officers who conducted the search seized items believed to be a controlled substance, paraphernalia, and marijuana.

24. Neither Howard Payne University Department of Public Safety nor the City of Brownwood Police Department obtained consent from Adrienne Sanchez or [Appellee] to conduct a search for the purposes of a criminal investigation or prosecution.

....

Conclusions of Law

1. [Appellee] and her roommate consented to search by the University officials in the furtherance of health and safety concerns by signing the University Housing Agreement, but did not waive their rights under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and the applicable provisions of the Texas Constitution to protection from unreasonable searches and seizures.

....

4. Officer Pacatte, as a licensed peace officer, was an officer of the State and his action is therefore subject to the limitations of the Fourth Amendment.

....

6. Officer Pacatte did not have consent from [Appellee] or her roommate to search the dorm room.

....

13. Without a search warrant, consent, exigent circumstances, or the plain view doctrine, Officer Pacatte's actions constituted an unreasonable search and seizure and therefore the evidence seized as a result of that search should be suppressed.

14. The issue before the Court in the hearing on the Motion to Suppress was the action of the two certified Texas police departments, Howard Payne University Department of Public Safety and the City of Brownwood Police Department, in conducting a search of a residence for the purposes of criminal prosecution in light of the protections granted to individuals under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article 1, Section 9 of the Texas Constitution. U.S. Const. amend. IV ; see alsoTex. Const. art. I, § 9 ; Tex. Crim. Proc. Code Ann. § 38.23(a) (West 2012).

....

16. Consent to search could only have been given by [Appellee] or Ms. Sanchez under the court generated doctrine of common authority. A person with mutual use and joint access of the property is said to have such common authority. Illinois v. Rodriguez, 497 U.S. 177, 181, 110 S.Ct. 2793, 111 L.Ed.2d 148 (1990) ; see alsoU.S. v. Matlock, 415 U.S. 164, 171, 94 S.Ct. 988, 39 L.Ed.2d 242 (1974) ; see alsoMorale v. Grigel, 422 F.Supp.

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