Court Opinion

ID: 9611026
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:51:01.531643+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:08.557068
License: Public Domain

LEE ANN DAUPHINOT, Justice,
dissenting.
Although the majority opinion is thoughtfully and carefully researched and written, I must respectfully dissent because the majority writes to reverse the well-founded decision of the trial judge.
In reviewing the trial judge’s ruling, we apply a de novo standard of review as to questions of law and afford almost total deference to the trial judge’s determination of facts.1 Moreover, if the trial court’s ruling on a matter of law is correct under any theory of law, even if the trial court gives the wrong reason for its ruling, we must affirm the trial court’s decision.2
In May v. State,3 the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that former section *25642.07 of the Texas Penal Code, prior to its amendment in 1983, was unconstitutional. As the May opinion provides, that former statute read, in pertinent part:
(a) A person commits an offense if he intentionally:
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(2) threatens, by telephone or in writing, to take unlawful action against any person and by this action intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly annoys or alarms the recipient or intends to annoy or alarm the recipient; or
(3) places one or more telephone calls anonymously, at an unreasonable hour, in an offensive and repetitious manner, or without a legitimate purpose of communication and by this action intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly annoys or alarms the recipient.4
The May Court, citing Kramer v. State,5 concluded that the statute was void for vagueness because of its failure to 1) adequately define what annoys and alarms people and 2) specify whose sensitivities must be offended.6
The ordinance now before us provides in pertinent part that a “noise disturbance” is
[olperating or permitting to be operated any radio ... in such a manner as to violate the sound levels of this article or to unreasonably disturb or interfere with the peace, comfort and repose of neighboring persons of ordinary sensibilities, unless a permit of variance is first obtained.7
The Bedford police officers variously described the music from Appellee’s radio as “so loud,” played at an extremely high level,” and louder than the noise at the party. The officer who stopped Appellee’s car said he stopped Appellee because he believed that Appellee was violating the Bedford noise ordinance.
Our sister court in Houston has pointed out:
All criminal laws must give fair notice to the populace as to what activity is made criminal so that individuals have fair warning of what is forbidden. Criminal statutes must provide an objective standard by which a person’s conduct can be measured. A statute which forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application violates the first essential of due process of law. To determine whether a law provides fair notice requires a two-step process. First, we must determine whether appellant, as an ordinary person, received sufficient information from the statute to understand exactly what conduct is prohibited so that she could act in a lawful manner. Second, we must determine whether [the law] provides sufficient notice of the prohibited conduct to law enforcement personnel, so that appellant is not arbitrarily or discriminatorily prosecuted by the State or convicted by the jury.8
The standard for determining the vagueness issue was established in City of Jacksonville, in which the United States Supreme Court held that a statute is void for vagueness when it fails to give a person of *257ordinary intelligence fair notice that his contemplated conduct is forbidden, it encourages arbitrary and erratic arrests and convictions, makes criminal those activities which by modern standards are normally innocent, and places almost unfettered discretion in the hands of the police.9
In the case now before this court, the trial judge announced that the ordinance in question is unconstitutionally overbroad and void for vagueness. The findings of fact and conclusions of law that appear in the record address only the overbreadth holding. It is clear from reading the record as a whole that the trial judge was concerned that the ordinance was actually unconstitutionally vague for its failure to afford fair notice of the prohibited conduct and its failure to establish objective standards for determining whether a violation has occurred. The consequence of such failures is to leave to the police officers the unbridled discretion to judge whether a violation of the ordinance has occurred. We cannot tell from the record how loudly the radio was playing, except that it was so loud, played at an extremely high level, or could be heard at a particular distance. An ordinance that prohibits noise above a certain decibel level or that can be heard at a specific distance under specific circumstances provides objective standards. The Bedford ordinance does not. Whether a violation of the Bedford ordinance occurs depends only on the police officers’ determination of what is too loud and what unreasonably disturbs or interferes with the peace, comfort, and repose of neighboring persons. Indeed, in the case before us, the police officers alone determined who were “neighboring persons.”
The Bedford ordinance appears to be constitutionally infirm for the very reasons the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held the telephone harassment statute void for vagueness in May, and for similar reasons supporting the Supreme Court’s holding in City of Jacksonville. I would hold that the trial court did not err in declaring the Bedford ordinance unconstitutional and granting Appellee’s motion to suppress. Because the majority holds that the trial court did err, I must respectfully dissent.

. Guzman v. State, 955 S.W.2d 85, 89 (Tex.Crim.App.1997).

. Romero v. State, 800 S.W.2d 539, 543 (Tex.Crim.App.1990); Couchman v. State, 3 S.W.3d 155, 158 (Tex.App.-Fort Worth1999, pet. ref’d); Pettigrew v. State, 908 S.W.2d 563, 568 (Tex.App.-Fort Worth 1995, pet. ref’d); see also In re ExxonMobil Corp., 97 S.W.3d 353, 365 (Tex.App.-Houston [14th Dist.] 2003, orig. proceeding); Luxenberg v. Marshall, 835 S.W.2d 136, 141-42 (Tex.App.-Dallas 1992, orig. proceeding).

.765 S.W.2d 438, 440 (Tex.Crim.App.1989) (op. on reh'g).

. Id. at 439.

. 605 S.W.2d 861 (Tex.Crim.App. [Panel Op.] 1980).

. May, 765 S.W.2d at 440.

. Bedford, Tex., Code 1969 § 12-55 (recodified at Bedford, Tex., Code of Ordinances ch. 54, art. II, § 36 (2002)).

. Weyandt v. State, 35 S.W.3d 144, 155 (Tex.App.-Houston [14th Dist.] 2000, no pet.) (citations omitted).

. Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156, 162-71, 92 S.Ct. 839, 843-48, 31 L.Ed.2d 110 (1972).