Case Name: Albert Preston CARTER, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1985-11-01
Citations: 700 S.W.2d 289
Docket Number: No. 05-84-00005-CR
Parties: Albert Preston CARTER, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
Judges: Before ALLEN, HOWELL and ZIM-MERMANN, JJ.
Reporter: South Western Reporter Second Series
Volume: 700
Pages: 289–297

Head Matter:
Albert Preston CARTER, Appellant, v. The STATE of Texas, Appellee.
No. 05-84-00005-CR.
Court of Appeals of Texas, Dallas.
Nov. 1, 1985.
Robert M. Burns, Dallas, for appellant.
Henry Wade, Crim. Dist. Atty., Constance M. Maher, Asst. Dist. Atty., Dallas, for appellee.
Before ALLEN, HOWELL and ZIM-MERMANN, JJ.

Opinion:
ALLEN, Justice.
This is a probation revocation appeal. Appellant, Albert Preston Carter, contends that the trial court, in passing on the State's motion to revoke, abused its discretion by considering evidence seized as the result of an illegal detention. We hold that the detention was not illegal and affirm the trial court's order.
On April 6, 1983, appellant had pleaded guilty to a charge of driving while intoxicated. Based on his plea, the court set punishment at thirty days confinement probated for two years, plus a fine and court costs. It was a condition of probation that appellant commit no offense against the laws of this State.
Appellant was arrested again, though, on May 7,1983, after the police stopped him at about the 3800 block of Samuels Boulevard in Dallas at a roadblock-type checkpoint. When appellant pulled up, one of the officers on duty checked his license, and in so doing noticed a strong smell of alcohol. The officer asked appellant if he had been drinking, and appellant said he had. The officer then asked appellant to get out of the car and do certain field sobriety tests. Appellant performed unsatisfactorily and was later taken to a police station where he took an intoxilyzer test. Appellant's blood-alcohol concentration measured 0.18 percent.
As a result of this arrest, the State charged appellant with another offense of driving while intoxicated. The State also filed the present motion to revoke probation alleging a subsequent offense of driving while intoxicated. Appellant went to trial for the May offense and the jury found him guilty. At the close of trial, the judge heard the State's motion to revoke probation over appellant's plea of not true. In support of its motion, the State offered all the evidence just heard in the jury trial of the May offense.
Appellant had urged his motion to suppress this evidence after its reception in the jury trial, but before the jury heard the charge. The trial court, in ruling on this motion, made oral findings of fact and conclusions of law. While making these findings and conclusions the court observed:
The Court is of the opinion that there is an issue as to whether the police officer set up the driver's license check for the purpose of checking drivers' licenses or whether they were — were actually trying to ferret out suspected drunk drivers.
In the Court's opinion, it does not matter whether the motives — what the motives of the police officers were, as long as their behavior was legal, and the Court finds that their behavior in setting up the license check and the manner in which the license check was operated were both legal and conformed with— with the law.
The court then overruled appellant's motion to suppress. Appellant re-urged his motion to suppress at the revocation hearing. The trial judge implicity overruled the motion again, saying that "I will take into account the evidence I've already heard in the jury trial . and carry over . all the motions and rulings on evidence that were made during the . jury trial." The court then found that the allegations in the State's motion to revoke probation were true and, consequently, revoked appellant's probation.
Appellant did not urge his motion to suppress during the jury trial in a timely fashion, and this court has affirmed the conviction in his appeal of that case. Carter v. State, No. 05-84-00004-CR (Tex. App. — Dallas, March 12, 1985, pet. granted). Nevertheless, evidence obtained as a result of an illegal seizure, or initial illegal detention, is not admissible in a probation revocation hearing. Jones v. State, 567 S.W.2d 209 (Tex.Crim.App.1978). Appellant's objection in the revocation proceeding was timely; thus, he has preserved his complaint for review. See Scott v. State, 543 S.W.2d 128, 129 (Tex.Crim.App.1976).
We conclude, however, that we must uphold the trial court's ruling on the motion to suppress. The roadblock was justified under TEX.REV.CIV.STAT.ANN. art. 6687b, § 13 (Vernon Supp.1985) only if the police had set up the roadblock for the sole purpose of checking driver's licenses. Meeks v. State, 692 S.W.2d 504, 508 (Tex.Crim.App.1985). There was evidence that the police had set up the roadblock solely in order to check driver's licenses.
Leo Saveli, a captain in the traffic division of the Dallas police department, who participated in the policy decisions of the Dallas police department regarding driver's license checks, testified that the only reason the Dallas police stop cars at such roadblocks in Dallas is to check driver's licenses. In addition to this direct testimony, two circumstances support the conclusion that a roadblock in this case was set up solely as a driver's license check. First, the police stopped both eastbound and westbound traffic, even though only the eastbound traffic came from an area in which there were bars and liquor stores. The westbound traffic came from a dry, industrial area. Second, the police set up the roadblock from about 4:30 p.m. until 6:00 p.m. The best time to catch intoxicated drivers, according to police testimony, would be from midnight to 2:00 a.m. on a Friday or Saturday night.
There was, to be sure, considerable testimony indicating that checking driver's licenses was not the sole purpose of the roadblock, that catching drunk drivers was at least an additional purpose. ZOrdinarily, we would deal with this contrary testimony simply by citing the rule that the trial court had the prerogative, absent an abuse of discretion, to believe the testimony supporting his ruling and to disbelieve conflicting testimony. Taylor v. State, 604 S.W.2d 175, 177 (Tex.Crim.App.1980); Zepeda v. State, 638 S.W.2d 542, 545 (Tex.App.— Houston [1st Dist.] 1982, no pet.). The fact that the trial judge declined to make a finding on the officers' reason for setting up the roadblock, declaring instead that his ruling would rest on other grounds, complicates the matter somewhat but does not compel a different result.
A motion to suppress raises an issue concerning the admissibility of evidence. An appellate court will sustain a judge's ruling that evidence is admissible if there is any basis to support it. Nickerson v. State, 645 S.W.2d 888, 890 (Tex.App. — Dallas 1983), aff'd, 660 S.W.2d 825 (Tex.Crim.App.1983). Consequently, if the record shows a reasonable basis for upholding a search, an appellate court will uphold it, even if the trial court's grounds for denying the motion to suppress were erroneous. Cf. Nickerson, 645 S.W.2d at 891 ("an appellate court may use the entire trial record to uphold a search even though the trial court erroneously denied the motion to suppress on the lesser amount of evidence presented at the pre-trial hearing"). There was testimony in the present record to support the conclusion that the police set up the roadblock solely for the purpose of cheeking driver's licenses. Consequently, there was a reasonable basis to support the trial court's denial of the motion to suppress and admission of the challenged evidence.
Moreover, even if we were to assume that the trial court erred in admitting this evidence, the error would be harmless. The State had properly introduced, in the probation revocation hearing, appellant's April conviction and the terms of his probation. The trial court had, earlier in the day's proceedings, received the jury's guilty verdict and pronounced judgment and sentence on appellant. This judgment and sentence were thus before the court as it ruled on the motion to revoke probation. The judgment and sentence in themselves were a sufficient basis for the trial court to find, from a preponderance of the evidence, that appellant had committed an offense against the laws of the State of Texas. An appellate court will sustain a probation revocation on the basis of an immediately preceding conviction in the same court, despite the fact that the conviction was on appeal at the time of the revocation, if, at the time of the appeal of the revocation, there exists no contest to the sufficiency of the evidence in the conviction. Haile v. State, 556 S.W.2d 818 (Tex.Crim.App.1977). In his appeal of his April, 1983, conviction for driving while intoxicated, appellant presented no ground of error challenging the sufficiency of the evidence. Carter v. State, No. 05-84-00004-CR (Tex.App. — Dallas, March 12, 1985, pet. granted). He did not, in his appeal, pray that this court render a judgment of acquittal upon suppression of the evidence he claimed the trial court had admitted erroneously. Nor did he make such a prayer in his petition for discretionary review to the Court of Criminal Appeals. Thus, now there does not exist, in any way, a contest to the sufficiency of the evidence in that conviction. We must therefore regard the conviction as a sufficient basis for the trial's probation revocation in the same proceeding. We must, as a result, hold that the trial court did not err in revoking appellant's probation. We overrule appellant's sole ground of error.
Affirmed.
Howell, J., dissents.