State v. Waters, PD-0792-17

• Decision Date: 31 October 2018
• Docket Number: NO. PD-0792-17,PD-0792-17
• Citation: 560 S.W.3d 651
• Parties: The STATE of Texas v. Amanda WATERS, Appellee
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

560 S.W.3d 651

The STATE of Texas

v.Amanda WATERS, Appellee

NO. PD-0792-17

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

Delivered: October 31, 2018

Scott Stillson, State Bar No: 24047272, Law Office of Scott Stillson, PLLC, 900 8th Street, Suite 1230, Wichita Falls, Texas 76301, for Appellant.

Jennifer Ponder, Assistant Criminal District Attorney, John W. Brasher, Special Prosecutor, 900 7th Street, Wichita Falls, Texas 76301, Stacey Soule, State's Attorney, Austin, for State of Texas.

ALCALA, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. NEWELL, J., filed a concurring opinion in which HERVEY, J., joined.

OPINION

In this case, we are asked to revisit our precedent in Ex parte Tarver, 725 S.W.2d 195 (Tex. Crim. App. 1986), to determine whether that decision remains good law. More than thirty years ago in Tarver , we held that the doctrine of collateral estoppel bars the State from prosecuting an offense following a trial judge's finding of "not true" as to the commission of that same offense at an earlier probation revocation hearing. The State contends in its petition for discretionary review that Tarver has been abrogated and should now be expressly abandoned. We conclude that Tarver meets the narrow criteria for overruling our prior precedent, and we now abandon the rule of that decision. We, therefore, reverse the judgment of the court of appeals that had applied Tarver to uphold the trial court's dismissal of the information filed against Amanda Louise Waters, appellee, for the offense of Driving While Intoxicated, and we remand this case to the trial court for further proceedings.

I. Background

In October 2015, while Waters was on community supervision for an offense, she was arrested for DWI. Based on her arrest, the State filed a motion to revoke her community supervision, alleging, among other grounds, that she had violated the terms of her supervision by committing another criminal offense.¹

In February 2016, the trial court held a hearing on the State's motion to revoke. The State's sole evidence in support of its allegation that Waters had committed DWI was the testimony of Waters's community supervision officer, Officer Jetton. Officer Jetton testified that he was aware that Waters had been arrested for DWI in October 2015, but he otherwise had no personal knowledge of the facts surrounding the alleged offense. Based on this evidence, the trial judge determined that the State had failed to prove by a preponderance that Waters committed DWI as alleged in the State's motion, and he found the allegation "not true."² The trial judge rejected the State's motion to revoke, and he issued an order continuing Waters on community supervision.³

In March 2016, the State filed an information charging Waters with the same instance of DWI that had been alleged in the motion to revoke. Waters subsequently filed a pretrial application for a writ of habeas corpus in which she contended that her prosecution for DWI was barred by collateral estoppel pursuant to this Court's holding in Tarver, 725 S.W.2d at 199. Relying on Tarver, Waters asserted that, because the State had previously sought to revoke her community supervision based on the same instance of DWI that was alleged in the information and the trial judge at the revocation hearing had found that allegation "not true," the State was precluded from prosecuting her for that offense. Agreeing with Waters's argument that her prosecution for DWI was barred by collateral estoppel in light of Tarver , the trial court granted her request for pretrial habeas relief, and it dismissed the information against her.

The State appealed. Although it acknowledged that Tarver would support Waters's position that her prosecution for DWI was barred by collateral estoppel, the State argued that Tarver has been implicitly overruled by this Court and is no longer good law. The court of appeals rejected this argument, observing that this Court has given no indication that Tarver has been overruled, and thus it remains binding on the lower appellate courts. See State v. Waters , No. 02-16-00274-CR, 2017 WL 2877086, at *2 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth July 6, 2017) (mem. op., not designated for publication). Applying the rule of Tarver to Waters's case, the court of appeals agreed with the trial court's conclusion that the DWI charge had already been resolved adversely to the State in a final judgment from the probation revocation hearing. Id. at *3. Therefore, any subsequent prosecution for that offense constituted an attempt by the State to relitigate the same fact issue that had already been resolved against it, and the prosecution was thus barred by collateral estoppel under Tarver . Id. (citing Tarver , 725 S.W.2d at 198, 200 ).

This Court granted the State's petition for discretionary review to evaluate whether Tarver remains good law, such that Waters's prosecution for the same instance of DWI that was found "not true" at the revocation hearing should be precluded pursuant to the doctrine of collateral estoppel.⁴

II. Analysis

For reasons explained more fully below, we agree with the arguments presented in the briefs of the State and the amicus curiae⁵ that collateral estoppel should not apply to bar prosecution of an offense following a finding of "not true" regarding the commission of that same offense at an earlier revocation hearing. After we review this Court's decision in Tarver below, we explain why we now conclude that collateral estoppel is inapplicable under these circumstances.

A. Collateral Estoppel as Applied in Tarver

In Tarver , this Court considered facts that are procedurally similar to those in the instant case. After he was convicted of an offense and placed on probation, Tarver was arrested for another offense, assault. Tarver , 725 S.W.2d at 196. The State filed a motion alleging that Tarver had violated the terms of his probation by committing the assault. Id. The State also filed an information charging Tarver with the same assault. Id. After a hearing on the State's motion to revoke at which the State presented evidence in support of the allegation, the trial court found the alleged assault "not true," noting that it had found the State's evidence not credible. Id. The trial court denied the motion to revoke Tarver's probation. Id.

Tarver then sought dismissal of the pending assault charge through a pretrial application for a writ of habeas corpus. Tarver asserted that the charge should be dismissed because the trial court's finding of "not true" represented a finding that he was not guilty of assault, and the State was therefore barred from prosecuting him for the same offense pursuant to double jeopardy principles. Id. After the trial court denied relief, the court of appeals reversed and dismissed the information, and this Court upheld the lower appellate court's decision. Id. at 197.

At the outset of its analysis, this Court observed that subjecting Tarver to prosecution for assault under these circumstances would not violate basic double jeopardy principles under the federal Constitution. Id. Because the double jeopardy proscription of the Fifth Amendment protects an accused from being twice placed in jeopardy of punishment for the same offense, that principle was not implicated by the prosecution for an offense that had previously been the basis of an unsuccessful motion to revoke probation. Id. Tarver was "not, therefore, being twice placed in jeopardy for the same offense." Id. Accordingly, the Court in Tarver held that "basic double jeopardy protections would not be violated by subjecting [Tarver] to prosecution for assault." Id.

Although basic double jeopardy protections were not implicated, this Court nevertheless determined that the corollary doctrine of collateral estoppel would apply to bar Tarver's prosecution for assault. Id. The Court observed that that doctrine " ‘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.’ " Id. at 198 (quoting Ashe v. Swenson , 397 U.S. 436, 443, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970) ). Applying this test to Tarver's case, this Court found it "clear that a fact issue, i.e., whether [Tarver] assaulted the complainant, has been found adversely to the State." Id. This Court reasoned, "The State is now attempting to relitigate that same issue. The doctrine of collateral estoppel bars such a relitigation." Id. This Court explained,

[W]e 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? In the instant case, we find that the fact the State now seeks to prove has already been resolved adversely to the State. The parties were the same as they would be in the county court prosecution. The allegation the State sought to prove was identical. The hearing was before a district court judge acting as finder of fact. The major difference between the two proceedings was the standard of proof, but it was the lower , "preponderance of the evidence," standard the State failed to meet in the revocation hearing. Having failed to meet that burden, the State is now attempting to relitigate the same resolved fact issue, under a higher burden of proof.

Id. at 199 (citations and footnote omitted).

Although it expressly stated that "basic" double jeopardy protections were not implicated, this Court's opinion cited to double jeopardy principles as further justifying its decision. The opinion stated,

The State is not trying twice to prove applicant guilty, because "guilt" as such was not the issue in the probation revocation hearing. The State is attempting, however, to prove the fact that would lead to a finding of guilt, i.e., that applicant committed the alleged assault, after once failing to prove that fact in a

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