Court Opinion

ID: 9659555
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:49:18.615522+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:09.340702
License: Public Domain

BAIRD, Judge,
dissenting.
Camouflaged by elliptic analysis and deliberate obscurity, the majority’s opinion in this case is nothing more than an attempt to sidestep our most recent precedent, namely, Guzman v. State, 955 S.W.2d 85 (Tex.Cr.App. 1997). In Guzman tMs Court held “we should afford almost total deference to a trial court’s determination of the historical facts that the record supports especially when the trial court’s fact findings are based on an evaluation of credibility and demean- or.”1 Guzman, 955 S.W.2d at 87. When applied to this case, Guzman stands in the *830way of the majority’s agenda of constructing results favorable to the State. Because the majority fails to apply the controlling precedent in this case without any thoughtful or comprehensible analysis for its position, I dissent.
I.
Pursuant to Tex.Rev.Civ. Stat. Ann. art. 6701d, §§ 39-47, appellee moved to suppress any statements that he made to the police during their investigation of the instant accident. The trial judge granted appellee’s motion to suppress. Not only is the trial judge the sole trier of fact in a motion to suppress hearing, the trial court is the judge of the credibility of the witnesses as well as the weight to be given their testimony. Guzman, 955 S.W.2d at 87, 89. If findings of fact or conclusions of law are not filed, we presume that the trial court made the findings necessary to support its ruling so long as those implied findings are supported by the record. Gusman, 955 S.W.2d at 88-89. As the trial judge did not file findings of fact or conclusions of law, but rather made his ruling orally, the instant “findings of fact” in this ease are necessarily “implied.”
The record clearly supports the trial judge’s decision to premise his ruling upon a finding that, pursuant to art. 6701(d), the information appellee provided the police regarding this accident was privileged. Article 6701d, §§ 39, 40, 45 and 47 combined to subject appellee to criminal liability if appel-lee did not remain at the scene of the accident and provide information to the police officers investigating the accident. However, as appellee provided information about the accident, pursuant to art. 6701d, the police were in a position to gain incriminating information for their DWI investigation. Appel-lee was not given Miranda2 warnings prior to being arrested for DWI. The police officer in charge of the investigation admitted that the accident investigation and the DWI investigation were “intertwined” to the extent that when the DWI investigation began, the accident investigation was still in progress.
II.
The trial court’s ruling is based on a determination of the historical facts clearly supported by the record, and based on an evaluation of credibility and demeanor. Therefore, the majority has an obligation to defer to the findings of the trial court in accordance with this Court’s opinion in Guzman, supra. Additionally, the majority opinion offends public policy by encouraging individuals not to cooperate with authorities in accident situations by pitting such cooperation against the exercise of one’s right against self-incrimination.
Because the majority ignores precedent from this Court and requires individuals to make a Hobson’s choice between the exercise of their Fifth Amendment right and being prosecuted for a misdemeanor offense, I dissent.
OVERSTREET, J., joins this opinion.

. All emphasis added unless otherwise indicated.

. Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966).