Court Opinion

ID: 9770618
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:12:58.07254+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:18.986113
License: Public Domain

MEYERS, Judge,
concurs and dissents.
The majority does a fine job of explaining why, for constitutional purposes, handcuffing is not always the equivalent of an arrest. To this limited extent, I concur in the majority’s opinion. Unfortunately, this only partly addresses the question upon which we granted review, which is:
Did the court of appeals err in affirming the trial court’s denial of appellant’s motion to suppress evidence?
That the majority misconstrues the question in this case is understandable. In urging this petition for discretionary review, appellant no doubt argues that he was arrested without probable cause when he was handcuffed and led to the back of the patrol car. This, however, does not mean that appellant’s argument is that he was unlawfully arrested solely because he was handcuffed. In fact, appellant repeatedly refers to the totality of the circumstances in concluding that he was unlawfully arrested, including the fact that “in the instant case, the officer conducted no investigation, and indeed passed up opportunities to investigate, prior to seizing [ajppellant and handcuffing him.”
In answering the question upon which we granted review, we address the court of appeals’ opinion, which, although concluding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in overruling appellant’s motion to suppress, nevertheless “disagree[d] ... with the trial court’s characterization of Rhodes’ detention as a warrantless arrest based on probable cause.” Instead, the court of appeals deemed appellant’s detention an investigatory stop supported by reasonable suspicion. Thus, the question before us is really quite fundamental: Was appellant arrested, for which the police need probable cause, or was he merely stopped for the purpose of investigation?
In order to answer this, we must set out the difference between an arrest and an investigatory stop under the United States Constitution.1 Both the court of appeals and the majority correctly note that our law does not require the finding of an arrest whenever an accused is handcuffed. Indeed, such a bright-line rule would hardly comport with recent Supreme Court case-law emphasizing the importance of police officer safety. Maryland v. Wilson, — U.S. -, -, 117 S.Ct. 882, 886, 187 L.Ed.2d 41 (1997). In Maryland, the Supreme Court held that “an officer making a traffic stop may order passengers to get out of the ear pending completion of the stop” without offending the Fourth Amendment. Id. Our Court has long recognized that officer safety ought be considered when defining the parameters of the Fourth Amendment. As the majority notes, we have held that a “lone officer’[s]” conduct in handcuffing “two men, both larger than he, and suspected of burglary” did not amount to an arrest. Mays v. State, 726 S.W.2d 937, 944 (Tex.Crim.App.1986).
But the majority fails to acknowledge that whether a detention is an arrest or an investigatory stop turns, in large part, upon whether an investigation has occurred. In United States v. Sharpe, 470 U.S. 675, 686, 105 S.Ct. 1568, 1575, 84 L.Ed.2d 605 (1985), the Supreme Court stated:
*120In assessing whether a detention is too long in duration to be justified as an investigative stop, we consider it appropriate to examine whether the police diligently pursued a means of investigation that was likely to confirm or dispel their suspicions quickly.
Of course, a quick investigation presupposes an investigation.2 This Court has cited the necessity of an investigation to an investigatory stop in even more direct terms. Amores v. State, 816 S.W.2d 407 (Tex.Crim. App.1991). The police officer in Amores blocked appellant’s automobile with his patrol car, ordered appellant out of his car and, once appellant complied, “ordered him to lie face down on the parking lot with his hands behind him.” Id. at 412. We held the encounter an arrest, despite the officer’s characterization of it as an investigatory detention. Id. In so doing, we held that “the officer’s opinion is a factor to be considered, along with the other facts and circumstances of the detention, in determining whether an arrest has taken place.” We went on to state that:
The investigative detention contemplated by Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 [88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889] (1968), is one during which the police are allowed to briefly question a suspicious person respecting his identity, his reason for being in the area or location, and to make similar reasonable inquiries of a truly investigatory nature. Here, no such investigation was conducted and the detention can by no means be characterized as investigatory within the meaning of Terry v. Ohio.
Id (emphasis added). Thus, the existence of an investigation is not just one factor in a “totality of circumstances”, but, rather, is a dispositive factor in determining whether a detention could be deemed an investigatory stop. In other words, and as we have explicitly stated in Burkes v. State, 830 S.W.2d 922, 925 (Tex.Crim.App.1991), if the officer(s) conducted no investigation by questioning, the detention cannot be considered investigatory (emphasis added).3 Of course, when an investigation has occurred, we look to all the other factors in order to define the detention as either an arrest or an investigatory stop, including, for example, the type and extent of the force used to restrain the suspected individual, issues connected with officer safety and the opinion of the restraining officer.
Despite the existence of both Amores and Burkes, the court of appeals in this case did not assess whether an investigation by questioning occurred and did not account for that finding in its determination of whether appellant was arrested. See Arcila v. State, 834 S.W.2d 357 (Tex.Crim.App.1992). This case should be remanded, to the court of appeals for a determination on this potentially pivotal issue. See Amores and Burkes.
Because the majority does not do so, I must respectfully dissent.

. Although appellant moved to suppress the cocain evidence under both the United States Constitution and the Texas Constitution, we will limit our review to the federal constitutional issue because that is the only issue addressed by the court of appeals.

. In other words, the very term “investigatory stop” confirms that the detention must be investigatory in nature.

. Recognizing the existence of an investigation as a dispositive factor not only comports with the term “investigatory stop”, but also reconciles the results in Mays, Amores and Burkes because in Mays the officer conducted an extensive investigation. None of these cases, however, require that, in order to be deemed an investigatory stop, the officer must first ask questions of the detainee. In fact, the investigation in Mays involved, to a large extent, the questioning of a complaining witness. Mays v. State, 726 S.W.2d 937, 943 (Tex.Crim.App.1986). To the extent that the majority asserts that a detention can be deemed investigatory when nobody is asked questions of an investigatory nature, it disregards the law as stated in Burkes and Amores.