State v. Villarreal

• Decision Date: 23 January 2014
• Docket Number: No. 13–13–00253–CR.,13–13–00253–CR.
• Citation: 476 S.W.3d 45
• Parties: The STATE of Texas, Appellant, v. David VILLARREAL, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

476 S.W.3d 45

The STATE of Texas, Appellant,

v.David VILLARREAL, Appellee.

No. 13–13–00253–CR.

Court of Appeals of Texas, Corpus Christi–Edinburg.

Jan. 23, 2014.

Rehearing Overruled March 4, 2014.

Discretionary Review Granted May 7, 2014.

Douglas K. Norman, Mark Skurka, Dist. Attys., Corpus Christi, for Appellant.

Fred Jimenez, Corpus Christi, for Appellee.

Before Chief Justice VALDEZ, Justices BENAVIDES and LONGORIA.

OPINION

Opinion by Justice LONGORIA.

This is an interlocutory appeal in a case involving a mandatory blood draw. See TEX. TRANSP. CODE ANN. § 724.012(b)(3)(B)(West 2011). The trial court granted a motion to suppress filed by appellee, David Villarreal, the defendant who is charged in the underlying case with driving while intoxicated ("DWI"). See U.S. CONST. amend. IV ; TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 49.04 (West Supp.2012). The State now appeals the court's ruling by one issue. See TEX.CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 44.01(a)(5) (West Supp.2012) (authorizing interlocutory appeal of order granting motion to suppress); State ex rel. Lykos v. Fine, 330 S.W.3d 904, 915 (Tex.Crim.App.2011) ("In Texas, the standard for determining jurisdiction [of an appellate court] is not whether the appeal is precluded by law, but whether the appeal is authorized by law."). For the reasons set forth below, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in granting the motion to suppress.

I. BACKGROUND

The relevant facts are not in dispute. The police arrested appellee for DWI. See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. § 49.04. At that time, the police ascertained that appellee had three prior DWI convictions. After appellee refused to participate in a field sobriety test, the police transported him to a hospital for a blood test to determine his blood-alcohol content. Appellee refused to consent to the blood test. The police did not have a warrant for it, and the State concedes that there were no exigent circumstances. The test showed appellee was over the legal limit. See id. § 49.01(2)(B) (West 2011). Appellee was subsequently charged with third-degree felony DWI. See id. § 49.09(b)(2) (West 2011).

Appellee filed a motion to suppress. See U.S. CONST. amend. IV ; TEX.CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 28.01, § 1(6) (West 2006).¹ The trial court held an evidentiary hearing on the motion, which it granted, and on the State's timely request, see State v. Cullen, 195 S.W.3d 696, 699 (Tex.Crim.App.2006), the court entered the following findings of fact and conclusions of law:

FINDINGS OF FACT

1. The court finds that the parties stipulated that "Mr. Villarreal was stopped and arrested for DWI on March 31, 2012. At that time, he was taken and blood was drawn without his consent and without a warrant. There is a blood test showing a .16 grams of alcohol per hundred milliliters of blood. There was no consent, no warrant." (RR vol. 1, p. 3).

2. The court finds that the Defendant narrowed the focus of his motion, and represented as the sole basis of such motion, his claim that "taking a blood draw without a warrant [is] a violation of the 4th Amendment" (RR vol. 1, pp. 3–4), such that he abandoned any claim that the Defendant was illegally arrested for DWI.

3. The Court finds credible Officer Gary Williams' testimony that, after he arrested the Defendant for Driving While Intoxicated, the Defendant refused Officer Williams' request for a blood sample. (RR vol. 2, pp. 7–8).

4. The Court finds credible Officer Williams' testimony that the Defendant appeared to be intoxicated based on his red watery eyes, slurred speech, and swaying back and forth. (RR vol. 2, p. 5).

5. The Court finds credible Officer Williams' testimony that, based on a review of the Defendant's criminal history suggesting reliable information from a credible source that the Defendant had three prior DWI convictions, he then took the Defendant to a hospital and collected a blood sample from him. (RR vol. 2, pp. 8–9).

6. The Court finds credible Officer Williams' testimony that he could have gotten a warrant for the blood draw and there were no exigent circumstances that would have prevented him from getting a warrant. (RR vol. 2, pp. 9–10).

7. The Court finds that the Defendant conceded at the suppression hearing that the arresting officer did nothing wrong in connection with the arrest and blood draw, except to the extent of Defendant's constitutional challenge to the mandatory blood draw statute. (RR vol. 2, p. 22).

CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

1. The Court concludes that the Defendant's blood was illegally obtained without a warrant and in the absence of a recognized exception to the warrant requirement, and that the statutory blood draw was invalid and unconstitutional without exigent circumstances to support the absence of a warrant.

II. ANALYSIS

In one issue, the State contends that the trial court erred in granting appellee's motion to suppress because the police officer's compliance with the "repeat offender" provision of the "mandatory blood draw law," Section 724.012(b)(3)(B) of the Texas Transportation Code, precluded the involuntary, warrantless blood draw in this case from violating the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. See U.S. CONST. amend. IV ; TEX. TRANS. CODE ANN. § 724.012(b)(3)(B) (West 2011).

A. Applicable Law

The Fourth Amendment provides that "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated." U.S. CONST. amend. IV. "The Fourth Amendment protects people, not places." Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 9, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968) (quotations omitted).

"This inestimable right of personal security belongs as much to the citizen on the streets of our cities as to the homeowner closeted in his study to dispose of his secret affairs." Id. at 8–9, 88 S.Ct. 1868. "[W]herever an individual may harbor a reasonable expectation of privacy, he is entitled to be free from unreasonable governmental intrusion." Id. at 9, 88 S.Ct. 1868. "No right is held more sacred, or is more carefully guarded, by the common law, than the right of every individual to the possession and control of his own person, free from all restraint or interference of others, unless by clear and unquestionable authority of law." Id. (quoting Union Pac. R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251, 11 S.Ct. 1000, 35 L.Ed. 734 (1891) ). The United States Supreme Court has recognized "[t]he security of one's privacy against arbitrary intrusion by the police as being ‘at the core of the Fourth Amendment’ and ‘basic to a free society.’ " Schmerber v. California, 384 U.S. 757, 766, 86 S.Ct. 1826, 16 L.Ed.2d 908 (1966) (quoting Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, 27, 69 S.Ct. 1359, 93 L.Ed. 1782 (1948) ). "Of course, the specific content and incidents of this right must be shaped by the context in which it is asserted." Terry, 392 U.S. at 9, 88 S.Ct. 1868. "For what the Constitution forbids is not all searches and seizures, but unreasonable searches and seizures." Id.

"In this case, as will often be true when charges of driving under the influence of alcohol are pressed, these [Fourth Amendment issues] ... arise in the context of an arrest made by an officer without a warrant." Schmerber, 384 U.S. at 768, 86 S.Ct. 1826. Here, there is no dispute that there was "probable cause for the officer to arrest ... [appellee] and charge him with DWI." Id. The trial court specifically found "credible Officer Williams' testimony that the Defendant appeared to be intoxicated based on his red watery eyes, slurred speech, and swaying back and forth." The trial court also found "that the Defendant conceded at the suppression hearing that the arresting officer did nothing wrong in connection with the arrest."

"[E]arly cases suggest that there is an unrestricted ‘right on the part of the government always recognized under English and American law, to search the person of the accused when legally arrested, to discover and seize the fruits or evidences of crime.’ " Id. at 769, 86 S.Ct. 1826 (quoting Weeks v. United States, 232 U.S. 383, 392, 34 S.Ct. 341, 58 L.Ed. 652 [1913] ) (citing People v. Chiagles, 237 N.Y. 193, 142 N.E. 583, 584 (1923) (Cardozo, J.)). "The mere fact of a lawful arrest does not end our inquiry." Id. "The suggestion of these cases apparently rests on two factors." Id. "[F]irst, there may be more immediate danger of concealed weapons or of destruction of evidence under the direct control of the accused." Id. (citing United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U.S. 56, 72–73, 70 S.Ct. 430, 94 L.Ed. 653 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting)). "Second, once a search of the arrested person for weapons is permitted, it would be both impractical and unnecessary to enforcement of the Fourth Amendment's purpose to attempt to confine the search to those objects alone." Id. (citing Chiagles, 142 N.E. at 584 ). "Whatever the validity of these considerations in general, they have little applicability with respect to searches involving intrusions beyond the body's surface." Id.

"[C]ompulsory administration of a blood test ... plainly involves the broad conceived reach of a search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment." Id. at 767, 86 S.Ct. 1826. "The interests in human dignity and privacy which the Fourth Amendment protects forbid any such intrusions on the mere chance that desired evidence might be obtained." Id. at 769–70, 86 S.Ct. 1826. "In the absence of a clear indication that in fact such evidence will be found, these fundamental human interests require law officers to suffer the risk that such evidence may disappear unless there is an immediate search." Id. at 770, 86 S.Ct. 1826.

"It could not reasonably be argued, and indeed ... [the State] does not argue, that the administration of the blood test in this case was free of the constraints of the Fourth Amendment." Id. at 767, 86 S.Ct. 1826. "Such testing procedures plainly constitute searches of ‘persons,’ and depend antecedently upon seizures of ‘persons,’ within the meaning of that Amendment." Id. "...