Court Opinion

ID: 9775333
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:54:31.164882+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:25.259083
License: Public Domain

MANSFIELD, Judge,
concurring.
I join the opinion of the Court and write further to express my opinion that the judgment of the court of appeals should be reversed, applying the principles recently set forth in Villarreal v. State, 935 S.W.2d 134 (Tex.Crim.App.1996) (plurality opinion).
To help place everything in its proper context, a brief synopsis of the relevant facts follows: On April 22, 1993, two Houston Police Officers, Rodriguez and Furstenfeld, were working their assigned beat as drug interdiction at the Greyhound bus station near downtown Houston. The officers testified at the hearing on appellant’s motion to suppress that, based on their several years of experience, individuals using the bus to transport narcotics from Houston to other cities generally fit certain patterns of behav- ' ior, which they described in considerable detail.
The officers observed appellant as he entered the bus station. Appellant was next observed arriving at the gate for the bus to New Orleans right before its scheduled departure time, carrying a new duffle bag. Appellant was also observed looking around anxiously and acting nervously in general while waiting to get on the bus. The officers, both in plain clothes, approached appellant. Officer Rodriguez showed appellant his badge and asked if he could speak with him. Appellant said “yes.” Appellant replied “yes” to Officer Rodriguez’s question as to whether he was taking the bus to New Orleans. Appellant continued to act nervously and showed Officer Rodriguez a one-way ticket to Baton Rouge, paid for with cash. *107Officer Rodriguez testified drug couriers generally purchase one-way tickets with cash. Appellant was unable to produce any identification, also a characteristic common for drug couriers, the Officer testified, as was his behavior in general.
Finally, Officer Rodriguez testified he asked appellant for permission to look in his bag, and testified further he told appellant he did not have to give him permission to look and, had he not received permission to do so, he would not have. Appellant told Officer Rodriguez to “go ahead.” Rodriguez found a large quantity of crack cocaine in the bag and place appellant under arrest.
The trial court, after a hearing, overruled appellant’s motion to suppress, finding, in effect, appellant had not been “seized” or “detained” when he gave permission to Officer Rodriguez, therefore making the search consensual and thus not implicating the United States or Texas constitutions’ provisions barring unreasonable searches and seizures. Appellant was subsequently convicted for possession of over 400 grams of cocaine and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison.
On appeal, the First Court of Appeals held that a “detention” resulted at the point Officer Rodriguez approached appellant, told him he was a narcotics officer and requested permission to search appellant’s bag. Citing Holladay v. State, 805 S.W.2d 464, 472 (Tex.Crim.App.1991), the court of appeals held further a reasonable person in appellant’s position would not have believed he was free to leave. Hunter v. State, No. 01-93-01158-CR, 1995 WL 215182 (Tex.App.—Houston [1st Dist.], delivered April 13, 1995) (unpublished). The court of appeals further held the officers lacked reasonable suspicion to detain appellant, reasoning the various factors testified to by Officer Rodriguez—in effect, a drug courier profile—observed as part of appellant’s behavior were as consistent with innocent behavior as criminal behavior. Accordingly, the court of appeals sustained appellant’s first point of error, reversed the judgment of the trial court and remanded the cause for a new trial. Hunter, supra, slip op. at 5-6.
We granted the State’s petition for discretionary review to consider the following two grounds for review:
(1) Does a request for permission to search a defendant’s luggage turn an otherwise consensual contact into a detention?
(2) Did the court of appeals ignore testimony as to the significance of certain factors in determining that the officers had no reasonable suspicion?
A trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress lies within the sound discretion of that court. At the hearing on the motion, the trial court is the sole judge of the credibility of the witnesses and the weight to be given their testimony. Romero v. State, 800 S.W.2d 539, 543 (Tex.Crim.App.1990). The reason for this rule is that the trial court, who observes the demeanor and appearance of the witnesses, is in a better position to determine their credibility than the appellate court is by reading their testimony as it appears in the record. Therefore, an appellate court must view the record evidence and all reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the trial court’s ruling, and must sustain the trial court’s ruling if it is reasonably supported by the record and is correct on any theory of law applicable to the case. Villarreal, supra; Romero, supra.
The concepts of “detention” and “reasonable suspicion” are by their nature, legal concepts. Therefore, the court of appeals did not act improperly in deciding de novo the questions of whether appellant was “detained” when he was asked by Officer Rodriguez for permission to search his duffel bag and whether the officers had “reasonable suspicion” to approach appellant on the ground his behavior fit the “profile” of a drug courier. An appellate court is generally in a better position to decide such questions of law than is a trial court. See Miller v. Fenton, 474 U.S. 104, 113-14, 106 S.Ct. 445, 451-52, 88 L.Ed.2d 405, (1985); United States v. McConney, 728 F.2d 1195, 1200-04 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 824, 105 S.Ct. 101, 83 L.Ed.2d 46 (1984). See also Chapa v. State, 729 S.W.2d 723, 728 (Tex.Crim.App.1987).
*108Most significantly, the court of appeals did not address the holding of the United States Supreme Court in Florida v. Bostick, 501 U.S. 429, 111 S.Ct. 2382, 115 L.Ed.2d 389 (1991), which is not cited in its opinion. In Florida v. Bostick, the Supreme Court held that there is no detention, for purposes of the Fourth Amendment, where a police officer, even if he has no basis for suspecting the individual, generally asks questions of the individual and asks for the individual’s identification. Furthermore, the officer may ask for consent to search the individual’s luggage, provided the officer makes it clear that the individual is not required to give consent. Florida v. Bostick, supra, at 433-39, 111 S.Ct. at 2386-88. Florida v. Bostick is squarely on point as to whether appellant’s encounter with Officer Rodriguez constitutes a detention under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution; the Supreme Court has ruled such encounters are not. The court of appeals does not cite any authority that a different result would be reached under Article I, § 9 of the Texas Constitution.
The court of appeals, in my opinion, also failed to give proper deference to the findings of the trial court, which, as we have held, is the sole factfinder at a hearing on a motion to suppress, and whose finding, if supported by the record, will not be disturbed on appeal. Taylor v. State, 604 S.W.2d 175, 177 (Tex.Crim.App.1980). In effect, the court of appeals ignored the trial court’s findings of fact when it announced what amounts to a new rule of law that an individual is always “seized” or “detained” when an officer requests permission to search. While the court of appeals is certainly entitled to conduct de novo reviews of the trial court’s rulings on questions of law, Villarreal, supra, and Chapa, supra, we may conduct de novo reviews as to the courts of appeals’ holdings on questions of law. Guzman v. State, 955 S.W.2d 85 (Tex.Crim.App. 1997). Indeed, we are often required to do so, for example, when there is a conflict as to a question of law between two courts of appeals.
Accordingly, whether police questioning of an individual constitutes a “seizure” or “detention” is to be determined on a case-by-case basis by examining the facts and circumstances surrounding the encounter. The record in the present case demonstrates the trial court conducted a lengthy hearing and made extensive findings of fact which support its conclusion of law that appellant was not “seized” or “detained” when Officer Rodriquez asked to search his duffel bag.
With these comments, I join the opinion of the Court.