Villarreal v. State
| Decision Date | 16 April 2020 |
| Docket Number | NO. 14-18-00406-CR,14-18-00406-CR |
| Citation | 631 S.W.3d 198 |
| Parties | Ernesto VILLARREAL, Jr., Appellant v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Jeffrey T. Strange, for Appellant.
Brian Marcus Middleton, Austin, Baldwin D. Chin, Houston, John Harrity, III, Richmond, Hector Salgado, for Appellee
Panel consists of Chief Justice Frost and Justices Wise and Hassan.
Appellant consented to a search of his truck during a traffic stop, and officers found more than ninety-five pounds of cocaine in a hidden compartment. After the trial court denied appellant's motion to suppress, he pleaded guilty to possession of a controlled substance. In two issues, appellant challenges the trial court's denial of the motion to suppress, arguing that a police officer lacked reasonable suspicion for the initial stop and subsequent detention. We affirm.
The Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures. Lerma v. State , 543 S.W.3d 184, 190 (Tex. Crim. App. 2018). A seizure must be justified at its inception and reasonably related in scope to the circumstances that justified the seizure in the first place. Id. A police officer is justified in stopping a vehicle if the officer has reasonable suspicion to believe that a traffic violation has occurred. Id. A traffic stop made for the purpose of investigating a traffic violation must be reasonably related to that purpose and may not be prolonged beyond the time to complete the tasks associated with the traffic stop. Id.
During a traffic stop, an officer may request the driver's license, vehicle registration, and proof of insurance, and the officer may run a computer check on that information. Id. An officer may ask the driver about matters unrelated to the purpose of the stop so long as the questioning does not measurably extend the duration of the stop. Id. ; see also Rodriguez v. United States , 575 U.S. 348, 354–55, 135 S.Ct. 1609, 191 L.Ed.2d 492 (2015).
An officer's authority for the stop ends when tasks related to the traffic infraction are, or reasonably should be, completed. Rodriguez , 575 U.S. at 354, 135 S.Ct. 1609 ; see also Lerma , 543 S.W.3d at 191. However, if an officer develops reasonable suspicion that an occupant of a vehicle is involved in criminal activity, the officer may continue questioning the person regardless of whether the tasks related to the traffic stop have come to an end. See Lerma , 543 S.W.3d at 191 ; see also Rodriguez , 575 U.S. at 355, 135 S.Ct. 1609.
Reasonable suspicion exists if an officer has specific, articulable facts that, when combined with rational inferences from those facts, would lead the officer to reasonably conclude that a particular person is, has been, or soon will be engaged in criminal activity. Ford v. State , 158 S.W.3d 488, 492 (Tex. Crim. App. 2005). This standard is objective; so, courts applying it are to disregard the subjective intent of the officer. Id. The officer need not be personally aware of every fact that objectively supports a reasonable suspicion to detain the suspect. Leming v. State , 493 S.W.3d 552, 562 (Tex. Crim. App. 2016). The possibility of an innocent explanation, rather than criminal activity, for the officer's observations does not deprive the officer of a reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. Id. at 565. Indeed, the principal function of a traffic stop based on reasonable suspicion is to "resolve that very ambiguity and establish whether the activity is in fact legal or illegal." Id. (quoting Woods v. State , 956 S.W.2d 33, 37 (Tex. Crim. App. 1997) ).
If a defendant shows that a search or seizure occurred without a warrant, then the burden shifts to the State to prove that the search or seizure was conducted pursuant to a warrant or otherwise was reasonable. Ford , 158 S.W.3d at 492. When reviewing a trial court's ruling on a motion to suppress, we give almost complete deference to the trial court in determining historical facts. Lerma , 543 S.W.3d at 190. We review de novo whether the facts are sufficient to give rise to reasonable suspicion. Id.
In his first issue, appellant contends that the officer lacked reasonable suspicion to stop appellant's truck for the traffic violation of operating a motor vehicle that has not been registered. See Tex. Transp. Code § 502.472. Appellant contends that the stop was illegal because "the record was not fully developed to justify a traffic stop from a [computer database] ‘no record’ return on appellant's registration."
At the hearing on the motion to suppress, the State stipulated that the seizure and search in this case were made without warrants. The officer who stopped appellant was the only testifying witness. The officer testified that he entered the license plate number of the truck that appellant was driving into the patrol car's computer to check various databases for information about, among other things, the truck's registration and insurance status. These databases include the Texas Crime Information Center (TCIC), the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), and the Texas Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (TLETS).
On this occasion, the databases returned "no record" for the truck's registration status. Based on this information, the officer believed that the truck was not registered. The officer initiated the traffic stop solely based on the "no record" return.
The officer testified that the databases are managed by the Texas Department of Public Safety. He has used the databases every day for every traffic stop he has made, and he has made many traffic stops. He has found the databases to be reliable. In his experience, on "very few" occasions the databases would show that a vehicle was unregistered when the vehicle actually was registered. The officer was not sure what "technicality" would cause such a situation. He acknowledged that it could be caused by the vehicle having been registered "fairly soon," but he was "not sure what the lag time is."1
The trial court filed written findings. The court found, among other things, that the officer "provided credible and truthful testimony."
Generally, an officer may use information obtained from checking a vehicle's license plate in a computer database to form reasonable suspicion. See Delk v. State , 855 S.W.2d 700, 709–10, 712 (Tex. Crim. App. 1993) (); see also United States v. Broca-Martinez , 855 F.3d 675, 679–80 (5th Cir. 2017) (); United States v. Esquivel-Rios , 725 F.3d 1231, 1235 (10th Cir. 2013) (). Even a seemingly inconclusive report, such as "unconfirmed" insurance status, may be a specific and articulable fact that supports a traffic stop if the officer is familiar with the database and the system is reliable. Broca-Martinez , 855 F.3d at 677, 680 ().
Appellant relies on two related cases from the Seventh Court of Appeals concerning the stop of a driver and passenger when the stop was based on a database return of "unavailable" or "undocumented" proof of insurance. See Contraras v. State , 309 S.W.3d 168, 172 (Tex. App.—Amarillo 2010, pet. ref'd) ; Gonzalez-Gilando v. State , 306 S.W.3d 893, 895 (Tex. App.—Amarillo 2010, pet. ref'd).2 In the context of those cases, the words were not self-explanatory, and the record gave no explanation for their meaning. Contraras , 309 S.W.3d at 172–73. The court reasoned that the information obtained by the officers was "hardly suggestive of anything other than the unknown." Gonzalez-Gilando , 306 S.W.3d at 896. Although an officer "unilaterally opined" that the information in the database led him to believe that the vehicle did not have insurance, the court could not accept the officer's inference as reasonable absent some other evidence to show: the source of the information, an explanation of the term "unavailable" in this context, an explanation of the timeliness of the information in the database, an explanation of how often users of the database were told that insurance information was unavailable, evidence that the database was operating at the time, or some similar contextual evidence. See id. at 896–97. According to the court of appeals, when there is a return of "unavailable" or "undocumented," there must be some other evidence to show a foundation for the officer's conclusion that the driver did not have insurance. Contraras , 309 S.W.3d at 173. The court reversed the trial court's denials of the motions to suppress.
The Fourth Court of Appeals similarly affirmed the suppression of evidence when the sole basis for the stop was information from the Financial Responsibility Verification Program (FRVP), which the court described as a "computer-based vehicle check," showing "insurance unconfirmed." See State v. Daniel , 446 S.W.3d 809, 811, 814 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 2014, no pet.). The court of appeals relied on Contraras and Gonzalez-Gilando . See id. at 815. The record contained no additional evidence concerning the reliability of the FRVP or the officers' experience with it. See id. at 813–15.
At least one other Texas court of appeals has addressed the issue...
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