Wiede v. State

• Decision Date: 31 January 2007
• Docket Number: No. PD-748-05.,PD-748-05.
• Citation: 214 S.W.3d 17
• Parties: David Edwin WIEDE, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas.
• Court: Texas Court of Criminal Appeals

214 S.W.3d 17

David Edwin WIEDE, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas.

No. PD-748-05.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas.

January 31, 2007.

John Fahle, San Antonio, for Appellant.

Wesley H. Hau, Asst. Crim. D.A., San Marcos, Matthew Paul, State's Attorney, Austin, for the State.

OPINION

KEASLER, J., delivered the opinion of the Court in which KELLER, P.J., MEYERS, PRICE, WOMACK, HERVEY, and COCHRAN, JJ., joined.

With officers standing nearby, David Edwin Wiede was observed hiding a plastic bag in his car shortly after he was in an accident. A search yielded methamphetamine, which Wiede moved to suppress. The trial judge denied the motion, but the court of appeals reversed.¹ We hold that the court failed to give appropriate deference to the trial judge's fact-findings and that it erred in finding that the search was unsupported by probable cause.

Facts and Trial Court Proceedings

In 1997, a jury found Wiede guilty of the second degree felony offense of possession of methamphetamine. The trial judge sentenced Wiede to ten years' imprisonment and assessed a $2,000 fine. The trial judge then decided to probate Wiede's ten-year sentence of imprisonment, placing Wiede on community supervision for a period of ten years.

The State filed a motion to revoke Wiede's community supervision and to impose sentence in October 2002. In the motion, the State alleged that Wiede, during the period of his community supervision, "on or about the 17TH day of April, A.D. 2002, in Hays County, Texas did then and there commit the offense of Possession of a Controlled Substance[.]"

Wiede entered a plea of not true and filed a motion to suppress the evidence seized from his vehicle on April 17, 2002, contending that the controlled substance, methamphetamine, was obtained as a result of an illegal search.

Early in the morning on April 17, 2002, while driving on FM 150 in Hays County, Wiede crashed into the back of an eighteen-wheeler truck. Roy Tambunga, who was behind the eighteen-wheeler on Siebert Drive when it pulled onto FM 150, witnessed the accident. At the suppression hearing, Tambunga testified that as the eighteen-wheeler was making a left onto FM 150, Wiede, who was traveling on FM 150 in a white car, "didn't have a chance to stop, skidded about a hundred feet or so, smacked right into the back of the truck and the truck kept going." When asked by the trial judge if he believed the truck driver was at fault, Tambunga stated: "I think that you should know that when you're driving a big truck like that, you can't move very fast, I think he pulled out and didn't give enough room for traffic, but I also think that the white car was traveling a little bit faster than the speed limit." Wiede's car, which sustained severe frontal damage, was disabled in the middle of the road. Tambunga pulled off the road and got out of his car to see if Wiede was okay. When Tambunga asked Wiede if he was all right, Tambunga observed that Wiede looked "dazed," was bleeding from his right arm, and was moaning.

Shortly after the accident, a group of Department of Public Safety (DPS) officers, who were on their way to the San Marcos Airport to conduct driver training for new recruits, drove up on the scene of the accident. The officers stopped, and Trooper Christopher McGuairt approached Wiede's car to render assistance. He observed that Wiede was bleeding around his facial area and was advised by Tambunga that Wiede had collided into the back of a truck. Trooper McGuairt recalled seeing the truck traveling in the opposite direction just before he arrived at the accident scene. He then pursued the truck, eventually catching up with it and stopping it. Trooper McGuairt noted some minor damage to the rear of the truck, which appeared consistent with the accident, and ordered the driver to return to the scene of the accident. The truck's driver was unaware of the accident, and according to Trooper McGuairt, the driver's lack of awareness did not seem remarkable given the load that the truck was carrying and the size of Wiede's car.

When Trooper McGuairt arrived back at the scene of the accident, other officers were directing traffic and waiting for emergency medical services (EMS) to arrive. During this time, Tambunga was standing by the left rear fender of Wiede's car and watching Wiede "in case he stopped breathing or something[.]" He noticed Wiede reaching his left hand across his body "as if he was getting something out of his pocket" and then "hide something between the seat, the driver's seat and the console." Tambunga testified:

I thought he was going to try to light a cigarette and I approached him. I approached over his shoulder to make sure that he didn't light a match because I thought, you know, the car would — there was quite a bit of fluid on the street. I didn't know if it was gasoline or anything else.

When asked if he could see what Wiede had in his hand, Tambunga stated that "it was covered by his hand for the most part and it was — appeared to be made out of plastic, clear plastic similar to a sandwich bag." After Wiede was removed from the car, Tambunga told a local law enforcement officer what he had observed. Tambunga testified: "I told him, I saw him stick something between ... the console and the seat and I may have said that it looked like plastic." Additionally, Trooper McGuairt was provided with similar information from Tambunga. Trooper McGuairt testified that Tambunga advised him

that he had observed the driver of the vehicle. With one hand he was covering up his face, basically moaning in pain. He was obviously in pain, and with his other hand he had reached over, removed something from his pocket and reached back and placed it around the console area.

The information provided by Tambunga was discussed among the officers surrounding Wiede's car. According to Tambunga and Trooper McGuairt, the local officer went to the car and searched it. Tambunga testified that the officer

went in and searched and at first, he produced a little — a small square about two by two plastic wrapper that had been torn — ripped open and I saw said, no. It was — I told him, I said it appeared larger than that. It looked like it was bigger than that. So he went back and produced a sandwich size bag, you know, with something in the bottom, some kind of off-white, whitish in the bag.

Trooper McGuairt took possession of the plastic bag so he could give it to the investigating DPS officer, Trooper Brian Freeman, upon his arrival. When Trooper McGuairt took possession of the bag, he took it over to EMS personnel and showed it to a paramedic. Trooper Freeman later took possession of the bag and then submitted it to the DPS lab for testing. A DPS chemist testified that the bag seized from Wiede's car contained 1.76 grams of methamphetamine. Wiede was subsequently charged with failing to have liability insurance and failing to control his speed.

After the presentation of evidence on the suppression motion, the trial judge stated that he would permit the parties to file informal briefs before issuing his ruling. The trial judge, however, indicated which way he was leaning.

You've got a witness, a bystander, describing a furtive gesture, possibly, and describing as he tried to hide something between the seat and the glovebox [sic] and it was a clear plastic bag. Now that's probably probable cause to believe it might be drugs, in this day and age, with officers seeing dope in plastic bags all the time.

...

I'm inclined to believe that that's probably probable cause to investigate further in this day and age and when an officer says that — has a witness tell him that he has now — has knowledge that somebody secreted a plastic bag, when there are police officers standing all the way around the vehicle, I think that's probable cause to search right now, but if you can show me some briefing to dissuade me, I will give you a chance . . . .

Approximately two weeks later, after receiving briefs, the trial judge heard additional arguments from the parties. Among other things, Wiede challenged whether Tambunga had in fact informed officers that Wiede had placed a plastic bag, as opposed to some unidentified object, between the console and seat after removing it from his pocket. In response to this argument, the trial judge concluded that Tambunga had conveyed the information about the plastic bag to the officers. The judge stated: "When [Tambunga] said to the officer, after he pulled out one, `No, not that one, a bigger one,' it became obvious to me that he did."

The trial judge denied Wiede's motion to suppress. After finding the allegation in the motion to revoke to be true, the trial judge granted the State's motion to revoke Wiede's community supervision and sentenced Wiede to ten years' imprisonment. Wiede filed a notice of appeal, and the trial judge certified his right to appeal.

The Court of Appeals

Before the Third Court of Appeals, Wiede challenged the trial judge's decision to deny his motion to suppress.² Wiede claimed, among other things, that "the drugs were the fruit of an unlawful search of his car."³ In response, the State argued that Wiede had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his wrecked vehicle and that law enforcement officials had "probable cause to believe the car contained contraband."⁴ The court, with one justice dissenting,⁵ agreed with Wiede, holding that the trial judge "erred by admitting the methamphetamine into evidence."⁶ Accordingly, the court reversed the lower court's judgment revoking Wiede's community supervision and remanded the case "for further proceedings not inconsistent with . . . [its] opinion."⁷

In reaching its decision, the court first addressed the State's contention that Wiede had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his vehicle — specifically, the State's argument that an "owner of a vehicle involved in a collision has reason to believe the car will be removed from the roadway and [that]...