Court Opinion

ID: 9770345
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 15:59:28.533982+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:16.678533
License: Public Domain

PHIL JOHNSON, Justice.
Stephen Christian Sanders appeals his conviction for possession of marihuana pursuant to a plea of guilty. The trial court assessed punishment at 90 days in jail plus costs of court. By his sole point of error, Sanders contends that the trial court abused its discretion by failing to determine that his initial detention was illegal and by failing to suppress the marihuana which he was convicted of possessing. We affirm.
FACTS AND HISTORY
Appellant was arrested on February 4, 1998 for the Class B misdemeanor of possession of marihuana. Appellant filed a pre-trial motion to suppress the marihuana that was discovered by police during what he alleges was an illegal stop of his vehicle. The trial court denied the motion and issued findings of fact and conclusions of law. By his sole point of error, appellant contends that the trial court abused its discretion by failing to determine that appellant was illegally detained and by failing to suppress the marihuana as being fruit of the illegal detention.
The only witness to testify at the hearing on the motion to suppress was arresting officer David Lavigne. Lavigne testified that he had been an officer with the Amarillo Police Department thirteen years and that he was on duty on the night of February 4, 1998. He was one of several officers working in the Wolflin area in Amarillo where there had been numerous burglaries. The officers had been assigned “to flood the area ... to see if [they] could catch the burglars.” At approximately midnight, Lavigne was, advised by the police dispatcher of an attempted burglary in the Wolflin area. He was assigned to proceed to the scene and investigate the reported crime. Lavigne was told only that the attempted burglary was by two male subjects with flashlights who fled on foot northbound in an alley.
Lavigne immediately proceeded toward the location of the crime. Three or four blocks driving distance from the scene of the reported attempted burglary, Lavigne *744encountered and stopped an automobile with two persons in it. The vehicle was heading away from the address of the reported burglary attempt, in the same direction as the two burglary suspects fled. The straight-line distance of the address of the attempted burglary from the point of the stop was approximately two blocks. The stop was made two or three minutes after Lavigne received the radio dispatch call concerning the attempted burglary.
Lavigne further testified that he had previously patrolled the Wolflin area at midnight and was familiar with traffic flow at that time and place. He indicated that there was “very, very little” traffic there at midnight. Lavigne stated that the vehicle he stopped was the only vehicle in the area. He testified that.it was not unusual for burglary suspects to park a couple of blocks away from the building or residence where a burglary was to be committed, commit the burglary, and then go to the vehicle on foot and drive away. Lavigne agreed that there was nothing unusual about a car being driven in the neighborhood at that time of night, and that he did not “expect to see zero cars” [sic] under those circumstances. The vehicle was not stopped because it was in violation of any law.
By his Motion to Suppress Fruits of Illegal Detention, appellant asserted in the trial court that incriminating evidence acquired as a result of his illegal detention should be suppressed. Appellant did not assert in his Motion to Suppress that the extent of the search conducted following the stop was improper, nor does he so assert in this appeal. Nor did appellant cite Article I, Section 9 of the Texas Constitution as a basis for the motion to suppress. Appellant has not urged in this court that Article I, Section 9 of the Texas Constitution offers more protection to him than is provided by the United States Constitution. See Hulit v. State, 982 S.W.2d 431 (Tex.Crim.App.1998) (Texas Constitution may offer less, more, or the same protections as the federal constitution). Thus, we consider appellant’s sole point of error to be asserting the search and seizure protective standards established by the Fourth Amendment of the federal constitution in regard to the making of a vehicle stop for investigative purposes. Tex.R.App. P. 38.1(e).
LAW
In reviewing a trial court’s ruling, appellate courts afford almost total deference to the trial court’s determination of historical facts that the record supports, especially when the trial court’s findings are based on credibility. Guzman v. State, 955 S.W.2d 85 (Tex.Crim.App.1997). However, if the resolution of ultimate questions does not turn on an evaluation of credibility and demeanor, appellate courts review mixed questions of law and fact de novo.1 Id. at 89. Detention and reasonable suspicion are by nature legal concepts and are properly subject to de novo review. Hunter v. State, 955 S.W.2d 102, 107 (Tex.Crim.App.1997); see also Loesch v. State, 979 S.W.2d 47, 50-51 (Tex.App. — Corpus Christi 1998, no pet. h.) (whether facts recited by police officers gave rise to a reasonable suspicion is a question reviewed de novo).
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects persons from unreasonable searches and seizures. See Elkins v. United States, 364 U.S. 206, 222, 80 S.Ct. 1437, 4 L.Ed.2d 1669, 1680 (1960); Davis v. State, 947 S.W.2d 240, 244 (Tex.Crim.App.1997); Giacona v. State, 372 S.W.2d 328, 333 (Tex.Crim.App.1962), cert. denied, 375 U.S. 843, 84 S.Ct. 92, 11 L.Ed.2d 70 (1963). We follow the guidance of the United States Supreme Court when interpreting the federal constitution. *745State v. Guzman 959 S.W.2d 631, 633 (Tex.Crim.App.1998).
In Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968), the United States Supreme Court held that a police officer can briefly detain a person and “search” that person by a patdown of the outer surfaces of the clothing in the course of investigating suspicious activity if the officer has a reasonable suspicion supported by articulable facts that criminal activity may be afoot. The officer must be able to point to specific articulable facts which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts, reasonably warrant the level of intrusion into the citizen’s personal security. Id. at 21, 88 S.Ct. 1868; see Davis v. State, 947 S.W.2d at 242. The facts must support more than an inchoate and unparticularized hunch or suspicion, but are to be considered in light of the officer’s experience. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. at 27, 88 S.Ct. 1868. While Terry dealt specifically with a “frisk” situation, a body of law has developed around what have become referred to as “investigative detentions.” See Adams v. Williams, 407 U.S. 143, 146-47, 92 S.Ct. 1921, 1923, 32 L.Ed.2d 612 (1972) (a “stop” is. a brief detention of a suspicious individual in order to determine his identity or to maintain the status quo momentarily while obtaining more information); U.S. v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 417, 101 S.Ct. 690, 695, 66 L.Ed.2d 621, 628 (1981) (investigatory stop must be justified by some objective manifestation that the person stopped is, or is about to be, engaged in criminal activity); U.S. v. Sokolow, 490 U.S. 1, 10, 109 S.Ct. 1581, 1587, 104 L.Ed.2d 1, 12 (1989) (the relevant inquiry is not whether the particular conduct is innocent or criminal, but the degree of suspicion that attaches to particular types of noncriminal acts).
Of particular relevance to standards by which we judge the matter before us are the U.S. Supreme Court cases of United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975) and United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. 411, 101 S.Ct. 690, 66 L.Ed.2d 621 (1981). Both cases dealt with the legality under the Fourth Amendment of vehicular investigative stops. In Brignoni-Ponce, the U.S. Border Patrol stopped a vehicle to question its occupants about their citizenship and immigration status. The stop was part of a regular traffic-checking operation in Southern California, near the Mexican border. The stop was based on the observations of two border patrol officers that the vehicle stopped was occupied by three persons who appeared to be of Mexican descent. It turned out that the two passengers were aliens who had entered the country illegally. The driver was charged with and convicted of knowingly transporting illegal immigrants. The court of appeals reversed the conviction because the stop of the vehicle was based solely on the appearance of the occupants as being of Mexican ancestry, and such basis was not a “founded suspicion” that the occupants were illegal aliens. The court of appeals held the stop to have been illegal under the Fourth Amendment, even for the limited purpose of questioning the occupants of the vehicle.
The Supreme Court affirmed the court of appeals and held that the single factor of the apparent Mexican ancestry of the vehicle occupants was not reasonable grounds for the officers to believe the occupants of the vehicle were aliens. The Court noted that its prior opinions established the principle that in appropriate circumstances the Fourth Amendment allows a properly limited “seizure” on facts that do not constitute probable cause to arrest or to search for contraband or evidence of crime. 422 U.S. at 881, 95 S.Ct. 2574. The Court then enunciated the test it used to evaluate the Brignoni-Ponce facts:
[W]e hold that when an officer’s observations lead him reasonably to suspect that a particular vehicle may contain aliens who are illegally in the country, he may stop the car briefly and investigate the circumstances that provoke suspicion. As in Terry, the stop and inqui*746ry must be “reasonably related in scope to the justification for their initiation.” (citation omitted). 422 U.S. at 881, 95 S.Ct. 2574. (emphasis added).
Cortez also involved border patrol agents. The Cortez officers discovered numerous foot tracks in a remote area. The tracks led from the Mexican border into the United States. The tracks terminated at a point next to Highway 86 in Arizona. The officers surmised that multiple groups of illegal immigrants passed along the route, were picked up at the highway and transported further into the United States. The officers set up surveillance of Highway 86 on a night they thought to be prime for entry of a party of illegal immigrants. The surveillance was out-of-sight of the anticipated pickup point on the highway, but in a position to monitor the type of vehicles that proceeded along the highway toward, and then returned from, the direction of the supposed pickup point. Multiple vehicles traveled Highway 86 while the officers observed the roadway. During the time frame the officers anticipated the pickup would be made, however, only one vehicle large enough to pick up and transport a group of people passed the officers driving toward the anticipated pickup point, then returned, heading away from the pickup point. The officers followed the vehicle, flashed their police lights, and intercepted the vehicle. The officers identified themselves, told the driver of the vehicle that they were conducting an immigration check, and asked if he was carrying any passengers in his camper. Cortez, the driver, opened the camper and six illegal aliens were discovered. Cortez and his passenger were charged with and convicted of transporting illegal aliens. The court of appeals reversed, holding that the officers lacked a sufficient basis to justify the stop of the vehicle.
The Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals and affirmed the legality of the investigative stop by the officers. The Court noted that the only issue was the legality of a stop for the limited purpose of questioning the occupants of the vehicle about their citizenship and immigration status and the reasons for the round trip to the area of the presumed pickup point in a short timespan in a virtually deserted area. The legality of the search following the stop of the vehicle was not questioned by the defendants. In finding the investigatory stop legal, the Court stated the two elements necessary for a stop to be permissible: first, all the circumstances and evidence must be considered, not in terms of “library analysis by scholars,” but as understood by those versed in the field of law enforcement; and second, consideration of all the circumstances must show that the officers had a particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person stopped of criminal activity. 449 U.S.at 417-18, 101 S.Ct. 690. The circumstances to be considered, according to Cortez, include “various objective observations, information from police reports, if such are available, and consideration of the modes or patterns of operation of certain kinds of lawbreakers.” Id. From such data the trained officers may permissibly draw inferences and make deductions that might well elude an untrained person. Id. In applying its analysis to the Cortez facts and circumstances, the Court determined that the stop did not violate the Fourth Amendment:
[T]he question is whether, based upon the whole picture, [the agents], as experienced Border Patrol officers, could reasonably surmise that the particular vehicle they stopped was engaged in criminal activity. On this record, they could so conclude. 449 U.S. at 421-22, 101 S.Ct. 690. (emphasis added)
Prior to 1997, Texas caselaw required the State to justify an investigative stop or detention by proving that the actions of the detainee were more consistent with criminal activity than with innocent activity. Armstrong v. State, 550 S.W.2d 25 (Tex.Crim.App.1976). In Woods v. State, 956 S.W.2d 33 (Tex.Crim.App.1997), the *747Court of Criminal Appeals overruled Armstrong insofar as Armstrong established the “more consistent -with criminal activity than innocent activity” test for determining whether an investigative stop was based on reasonable suspicion. The State asserted in Woods that the Armstrong test erroneously required the State to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the basis for an investigatory stop was consistent with criminal activity. The State contended that such a test was inconsistent with established U.S. Supreme Court authority for investigatory stops under the Fourth Amendment. The State also asserted that Texas caselaw subsequent to Armstrong negated the requirement of proof of activity consistent with criminal conduct by a preponderance of the evidence before an investigatory stop would be legal. Woods v. State, 956 S.W.2d at 34-5. Woods specifically overruled the Armstrong standard and adopted the less restrictive “reasonable suspicion” standard for investigative stops:
The Fourth Amendment bridles the government’s power to invade a person’s privacy by requiring that searches and seizures customarily be supported by a showing of probable cause. The lower standard of reasonable suspicion is derived from the probable cause standard and applies only to those brief detentions which fall short of being fullscale searches and seizures ... [We] follow the guidance of the Supreme Court in Cortez and Sokolow ... We hold that the reasonableness of a temporary detention must be examined in terms of the totality of the circumstances and will be justified when the detaining officer has specific articulable facts, which taken together with rational inferences from those facts, lead him to conclude that the person detained actually is, has been, or soon will be engaged in criminal activity. 956 S.W.2d at 35, 38. (emphasis added)
Two Texas cases have factual bases with similarities to the case before us. In Brooks v. State, 830 S.W.2d 817 (Tex.App. — Houston [1st Dist] 1992, no pet.) the court of appeals affirmed the trial court’s refusal to suppress evidence obtained pursuant to an investigative detention. Responding to a reported burglary in progress at an apartment, police witnessed the defendant driving out of the complex. An officer stopped the defendant to inquire what he was doing at the reported burglary scene, ran a driver’s license check, and found the defendant had outstanding warrants. The appellate court concluded that under the facts, the stop was not illegal. In Brooks, officers were able to articulate that (1) a burglary in progress was reported at a certain location, (2) the defendant was seen driving from the area as officers arrived, and (3) based on the experience of the officers, it was not uncommon for burglary suspects to be leaving or even be gone when officers arrived.
In Flores v. State, 967 S.W.2d 481 (Tex.App.-Houston [14th Dist.] 1998, no pet.), defendant’s vehicle was stopped by a police officer as it was exiting the parking lot of a bar. The officer who stopped the vehicle had responded to a reported assault. The officer stopped the vehicle because several Hispanic juveniles were in it. The officer did not stop the vehicle because she suspected the occupants of participating in the assault she was responding to, but rather because she recalled that some detectives believed a rash of burglaries had been committed by Hispanic juveniles. The officer, therefore, determined to investigate why the Hispanic juveniles in the vehicle were out so late at night in an adult bar parking lot and to see if they had been involved in burglary activity. After the stop and as the officer approached the stopped vehicle, she recognized the defendant as having been reportedly involved in an earlier disturbance, and the vehicle as having been stolen in the earlier disturbance. Defendant Flores was charged with unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. He moved to suppress all of the evidence seized as a result of the stop of the vehicle. *748He claimed the stop was illegal, therefore the subsequent search and seizure was illegal, and the fruits of the stop, search and seizure should be suppressed. The trial court denied the motion to suppress and the court of appeals affirmed. The court of appeals found the stop reasonable based on the specific articulable factors that (1) the officer was responding to a reported crime (assault); (2) defendant’s vehicle was departing the area where the assault had been reported; (3) it was unusual for a group of juveniles to be located in the parking lot of an adult establishment so late at night; and (4) the officer recalled that some department detectives believed a rash of burglaries was attributable to Hispanic juveniles. 967 S.W.2d at 484.
ANALYSIS
The State must justify a warrantless investigatory stop by proof.2 Officers effecting an investigatory stop must be acting on more than an inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or “hunch” that the detainee was, is or shortly will be involved in criminal activity. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. at 27, 88 S.Ct. 1868; Woods v. State, 956 S.W.2d at 35 (citing Terry). The officers’ required level of certainty need not rise to the point that a preponderance of the circumstances known to the officers support the suspicion that the detainee was, is or shortly will be involved in criminal activity. See Woods v. State, 956 S.W.2d at 38. Nor are the officers required to have been acting under circumstances sufficient to establish that the detention was based on probable cause to believe that the detainee was, is or shortly will be involved in criminal activity. Id. at 35. The same standards apply to detention of a vehicle stopped or detained by the authorities. United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. at 421-22,101 S.Ct. 690.
The reasonableness of the investigatory detention of appellant is judged in terms of the totality of the circumstances, including the objective observations of Lavigne, police reports available to him (including the dispatch radio call), the modes or patterns of operation of certain kinds of lawbreakers, and the inferences and deductions that were made by Lavigne as a police officer with thirteen years of experience and prior patrol experience in the neighborhood where the crime was reported and where appellant was stopped. United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S.at 418, 101 S.Ct. 690. The investigatory detention will be justified if Lavigne had specific articulable facts, which when taken together with rational inferences and deductions he could make from those facts based on his experience, could reasonably have led him to suspect that the appellant had been involved in the reported attempted burglary. See United States v.Cortez, 449 U.S. at 421-22, 101 S.Ct. 690; United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. at 881, 95 S.Ct. 2574; Woods v. State, 956 S.W.2d at 38. We must be mindful that Lavigne was investigating a reported crime. His stop of the vehicle occupied by appellant was to investigate and to gather information about persons who might have been involved in a crime that had already occurred. United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 at 881, 95 S.Ct. 2574. Such an investigatory stop is not in violation of the Fourth Amendment if Lavigne’s mind-set toward the particular occupants of appellant’s vehicle as possibly having been involved in the attempted burglary was based on specific articulable factors, and was such as could have been reached by a reasonable person so situated as was Lavigne. United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. at 421-22, 101 S.Ct. 690.
The facts of both Brooks and Flores have striking similarities to the facts in appellant’s situation. A1 three factual bases involve officers responding to re*749ports of crime. In all three situations the officers observed vehicles departing the area of the reported crime. In none of the cases were the occupants of the vehicles identified as having been at the very location where the reported crime took place before their vehicles were stopped. In each case one of the factors in the officer’s decision to stop the vehicle for investigative purposes was that the vehicle was located in proximity to the scene of a reported crime. In none of the cases did the defendant complain that either the extent or duration of the investigative procedure following the stop was excessive.
Appellant’s vehicle was two to three blocks from the scene of the reported crime. At the time Lavigne stopped appellant’s vehicle, appellant was not engaged in unusual or surprising activity which would, in and of itself, support a reasonable suspicion that appellant was, had been, or was about to be engaged in criminal activity. Our consideration of the totality of the circumstances, however, is not from the viewpoint of appellant, nor from the vantage point of a disinterested third party looking only at objective events. We must consider the information and circumstances known to Lavigne from the viewpoint of Lavigne as an experienced officer when he encountered appellant and his companion in their automobile, departing the area of the previously-reported crime. Woods v. State, 956 S.W.2d at 38; see United States v. Cortez, 449 U.S. at 417-18, 101 S.Ct. 690; United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. at 885, 95 S.Ct. 2574; Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. at 23, 27, 88 S.Ct. 1868.
Whether Lavigne’s thoughts that the occupants of appellant’s automobile may have been involved in the crime he was dispatched to investigate are labeled as a “hunch” or a “suspicion” does not control our evaluation. The controlling determination is whether, evaluating the circumstances as an officer with Lavigne’s experience and knowledge would evaluate them, and based upon specific articulable factors, a reasonably prudent man could suspect that the appellant’s vehicle or its occupants may have been engaged in criminal activity. The following specific articulable factors support Lavigne’s suspicion that the occupants of appellant’s automobile may have been involved in criminal activity: (1) Lavigne received and responded to the dispatch call shortly before midnight, a time of day when according to his prior experiences there was “very, very little” traffic in the Wolflin area; (2) the dispatch call reported an attempted burglary in an area that had been the scene of multiple recent burglaries; (3) two suspects were reportedly involved in the attempted burglary; (4) the persons attempting the burglary had departed in a northerly direction; (5) Lavigne believed that burglars often parked a getaway car a short distance from the residence or building to be broken into, and proceeded to their parked car on foot after the crime; (6) Lavigne encountered appellant’s vehicle no more than two to three minutes after receiving the dispatch call for the attempted burglary; (7) he observed no other cars in the area before (or after) he encountered appellant’s vehicle; (8) appellant’s vehicle contained two persons, the same number as had been reportedly involved in the crime; (9) appellant’s vehicle was heading away from the address where the crime had occurred; (10) appellant’s vehicle was headed in the same direction that the burglary suspects fled on foot from the scene of the burglary attempt; and (11) appellant’s vehicle was only three to four blocks driving distance (approximately two blocks straight-line distance) from the scene of the burglary when Lavigne stopped the vehicle.
We conclude that under the totality of the circumstances in this case, Lavigne’s suspicion that the occupants of appellant’s vehicle could have been involved in illegal activity was reasonable and was based on articulable facts and circumstances. The trial court did not err in denying appellant’s motion to suppress. Appellant’s sole *750point of error is overruled. The judgment of the trial court is affirmed.
QUINN,-J., dissenting.

. A question "turns” on an evaluation of credibility and demeanor when the testimony of one or more witnesses, if believed, is enough to add up to what is needed to decide the substantive issue. Loserth v. State, 963 S.W.2d 770, 773 (Tex.Crim.App.1998) (citing Hunter v. State, 955 S.W.2d 102, 105 n. 4 (Tex.Crim.App.1997)).

. Appellant did not prove in the suppression hearing that he was stopped without the State having a warrant. Neither appellant nor the state has raised the issue of the lack of proof of a warrant by appellant and we do not address that question.