Woods v. State

• Decision Date: 16 October 1996
• Docket Number: No. 03-95-00491-CR,03-95-00491-CR
• Parties: Candace Waggoner WOODS, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

Page 719

933 S.W.2d 719

Candace Waggoner WOODS, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.

No. 03-95-00491-CR.

Court of Appeals of Texas Austin.

Oct. 16, 1996.

Keith S. Hampton, Austin, for appellant.

Ronald Earle, District Attorney, Matthew B. Devlin, Assistant District Attorney, Austin, for appellee.

Before POWERS, JONES and B.A. SMITH, JJ.

JONES, Justice.

Our opinion and judgment dated September 18, 1996 are withdrawn.

Appellant was indicted for carrying a firearm in a court. Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 46.03(a)(3) (West Supp.1996). After her pretrial motion to suppress evidence was overruled, appellant pleaded guilty to the lesser offense of unlawfully carrying a weapon. Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 46.02(a) (West 1994). The district court adjudged appellant guilty and, pursuant to a plea bargain, assessed punishment at incarceration for one year, suspended imposition of sentence, and placed appellant on community supervision. ¹ Appellant preserved her right to appeal the court's ruling on the motion to suppress. Tex.R.App. P. 40(b)(1). We will reverse.

Background

On the day in question, appellant entered the Travis County Courthouse through the east, or main, entrance, passing as she did so a sign stating, "You are entering a security screening area. All persons and baggage are subject to a search." Inside the courthouse and a few feet from the entrance, appellant was confronted by a metal detector and an X-ray machine. Operating these machines were Kevin McCullen, a private security guard employed by the Travis County Sheriff's Department, and Billy Richardson, a deputy sheriff and McCullen's supervisor. McCullen testified that appellant had a "real surprised look, a scared look" when she saw the machines. Appellant "turned to her left and started to enter--and tried to go towards Room 112, which is the JP Five courtroom," the entrance to which was apparently outside the security devices but bore a sign advising that all persons must be screened before entering. Then "she turned around and started to go back out the doors...."

McCullen stopped appellant before she could leave the building and asked if he could help her. She told him that she was trying to get to the fifth floor. McCullen informed appellant that she would have to pass through the metal detectors to reach the elevators. Appellant told McCullen that she first had to go back to her car. According to McCullen, appellant seemed "real nervous." McCullen, who had been working at this job for over two years, became suspicious and told appellant that she could not leave the building without first running her purse through the X-ray device. Appellant disregarded McCullen's instruction and exited the courthouse. McCullen followed and stopped her outside. McCullen testified, "Basically I told her that we were still going to need to run her purse through, and at this point it wasn't--she didn't really have a choice in the matter." By this time, McCullen had been joined by Richardson. Appellant agreed to reenter the courthouse with the officers, telling McCullen that "it was going to set off the metal detector." When appellant's purse passed through the X-ray device, the officers could see the image of a pistol. Richardson opened the purse and seized a loaded .22 caliber pistol.

At a second hearing one month later, McCullen testified that appellant's actions led him to believe that there was a "good possibility" she was armed. Asked to describe these actions, McCullen answered:

A. It was that when she came in, she got a very surprised and scared expression on her face, and then tried to go around the security like she was entering through the JP Five door.

Q. And then what did she do?

A. Then she turned around and started to leave. When we asked her where she needed to go, she said she needed to go to the fifth floor.

. . . . .

A. We told her how to get to the fifth floor, and at that point she said, "No, I need to go back out to my car first," and this is something that we have seen a lot of other times. That's when we know somebody usually has something in their purse.

McCullen testified that on approximately fifty occasions, he had seen a similar expression on the face of a person before discovering a weapon or drugs. He acknowledged on cross-examination, however, that he had seen the same expression on persons who did not prove to have a weapon or contraband.

Richardson also testified at the second hearing. He stated that appellant was stopped because, "We wanted to run [the purse] through the x-ray machine and see if there was a weapon or contraband in it."

Discussion

It is undisputed that appellant was seized when she was stopped and made to reenter the courthouse. See California v. Hodari D., 499 U.S. 621, 626, 111 S.Ct. 1547, 1550-51, 113 L.Ed.2d 690 (1991) (person is seized for purpose of Fourth Amendment when she yields to officer's show of authority); Johnson v. State, 912 S.W.2d 227, 235 (Tex.Crim.App.1995) (adopting Hodari D. for purposes of article I, section 9). It is also undisputed that passing appellant's purse through the X-ray device was a search. See United States v. Jacobsen, 466 U.S. 109, 113, 104 S.Ct. 1652, 1656, 80 L.Ed.2d 85 (1984) ("search" occurs when reasonable expectation of privacy is infringed); Cullen v. State, 832 S.W.2d 788, 793 (Tex.App.--Austin 1992, pet. ref'd) (same); and see 4 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure, § 10.6(e) (4th ed. 1996) (hereafter cited as "LaFave"). In her motion to suppress, appellant complained that she was seized and searched in violation of the constitutions of Texas and the United States. U.S. Const. amend. IV; Tex. Const. art. I, § 9; Tex.Code Crim. Proc. Ann. art. 38.23(a) (West Supp.1996). ² The district court overruled the motion and made written findings and conclusions. The court concluded that appellant's purse was lawfully searched pursuant to a valid administrative scheme to secure the courthouse and, alternatively, that appellant was lawfully detained and searched because the officers had a reasonable suspicion that appellant was armed. Our review of the court's findings and conclusions, both factual and legal, is limited to determining whether the court abused its discretion. DuBose v. State, 915 S.W.2d 493, 496-97 (Tex.Crim.App.1996).

1. Administrative search.

The use of metal detectors and X-ray machines to screen the persons and immediate possessions of those boarding commercial aircraft or entering government buildings has been upheld as a form of administrative search. See 4 LaFave, §§ 10.6(c), 10.7(a) (discussing cases). In her first point of error, however, appellant contends the district court erred by upholding her detention and search on this basis. Appellant urges, among other things, that the actions of McCullen and Richardson exceeded the lawful scope of a limited security screening. The State concedes this point.

Because administrative searches are conducted without warrant or probable cause, they must be carefully limited in time, place, and scope. New York v. Burger, 482 U.S. 691, 703, 107 S.Ct. 2636, 2644, 96 L.Ed.2d 601 (1987); Santikos v. State, 836 S.W.2d 631, 633 (Tex.Crim.App.1992). To meet the test of reasonableness, an administrative screening search must be as limited in its intrusiveness as is consistent with satisfaction of the administrative need that justifies it. United States v. Davis, 482 F.2d 893, 910 (9th Cir.1973). When a limited check for weapons becomes a general search for evidence of crime, it can no longer be justified as an administrative search but must satisfy the warrant and probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment. United States v. $124,570 U.S. Currency, 873 F.2d 1240, 1247 (9th Cir.1989); Davis, 482 F.2d at 911-12.

It has been held that an airport screening search of the persons and immediate possessions of persons boarding aircraft is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment only if each prospective boarder retains the right to leave rather than submit to the search. Davis, 482 F.2d at 912. This is because the need to prevent weapons or explosives from being carried aboard aircraft cannot justify the search of a person who elects not to board. Id. at 911-12. The same reasoning applies to a screening search of persons entering a public building. The need to exclude weapons that justifies the administrative search cannot justify the compelled search of a person who elects not to enter the building.

The district court found that the screening of persons entering the Travis County Courthouse serves "a very strong governmental interest, which is preserving the peace and sanctity of the courthouse where citizens can come and take care of important business unfettered and unworried about being shot or intimidated or harassed by armed people." ³ Preserving the peace and sanctity of the courthouse cannot justify pursuing appellant after she left the building, stopping her, and compelling her to return and submit to an X-ray of her purse. The officers' actions transformed the screening process into a general search for evidence of crime. In fact, McCullen and Richardson testified that they were looking for drugs as well as a weapon. We agree with appellant and the State that the officers' actions, however well-intentioned, cannot be upheld constitutionally under the administrative search rubric, and hold that the district court abused its discretion by doing so. Point of error one is sustained.

2. Waiver of rights.

At the suppression hearing, the State argued that appellant waived her Fourth Amendment rights and consented to a search of her person and belongings when she entered the courthouse. Although the district court did not rely on this waiver theory in overruling the motion to suppress, appellant challenges this theory in her second point of error. In reply, the State again concedes that the search cannot be justified on this basis.

A person's consent to a warrantless search must be voluntary to be...